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Manual JT 



MlfcSiUNAKTNfclHUUS 

FOR YOUNG PEOPLES 
RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap2>y~. Copyright No.ZO.93" 
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 
MISSIONARY MANUAL 



HANDBOOK OF METHODS FOR MISSIONARY 
WORK IN YOUNG PEOPLE'S SOCIETIES 



BY 

AMOS R. WELLS 

• i 

AUTHOR OF " PRAYER-MEETING METHODS," " THE JUNIOR 
MANUAL." ETC, 




boston and chicago 

United Society of Christian Endeavor 

1899 






38499 



Copyright, 1899, 

BY THE 

United Society of Christian Endeavor. 



All Rights Reserved. 




F. H. GILSON COMPANY 

PRINTERS AND BOOKBINDERS 

BOSTON, U. S. A. 






\ 



PREFACE. 



No set of workers in our young people's societies 
is so eager for work to do, or so enthusiastic in doing 
the work, as our missionary committees. These en- 
ergetic laborers have long needed a full and systematic 
manual of directions and suggestions, such as this 
book aims to be. A few volumes have taken up this 
task in part and with admirable success, but none 
with the completeness of detail or anything like the 
fullness that I have attempted. 

Those that use this book will find it practical. In- 
deed, at least half of the plans here set forth have 
been tried and proved by large numbers of societies 
all over the world. 

At the same time, however, recognizing the value 
of novelty in this work as in most work, I have made 
up the volume to a very large extent — probably half 
— of original plans which have not before been pub- 
lished. I trust that these new methods will be found 
as useful as the old have been, and that they will give 
fresh life to thousands of missionary meetings. 

The book has been written with the one purpose of 
promoting the growth of the Kingdom of God. May 
our Saviour use it to that end. 

AMOS R. WELLS. 
Boston, June, i8qq. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

I. A Missionary Society . 

II. The Missionary Committee 

III. Missionary Meetings . 

IV. Missionary Maps 
V. Missionary Music . 

VI. Missionary Prayers 

VII. Missionary Reading 

VIII. Missionary Study Classes 

IX. Missionary Letters 

X. Missionary Museums . 

XI. Missionary Socials 

XII. Missionary Money . 

XIII. Relief Work . . . 

XIV. Missions in the Junior Society 
XV. Union Missionary Work . 

XVI. Missionary Mass Meetings . 

XVII. Missionary Conferences 

XVIII. Missions in Conventions . 

XIX. Missionary Spurs .... 



PAGE 

7 



14 
41 

45 
49 
52 
63 
70 
74 
77 
89 
101 
104 
no 

117 

123 

126 

130 



THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 



CHAPTER I. 
A MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 

It was a Great Dismal Swamp. 

The ground was oozy underneath, and the matted 
trees shut out the sky from above. Through the tan- 
gled thickets crept poisonous things, and the only 
paths were beaten down by savage beasts. Foul birds 
of prey found the woods full of carcasses. The air 
was heavy with miasmas, and a terrible silence was 
everywhere, except when it was broken by a scream 
that was worse than silence. 

Men lived in this swamp — men and women and 
little children. Though one can hardly say they 
lived, so dreadful were their lives in their wretched 
hovels, surrounded with the terror of the jungle, and 
cruel with all the wildness of the tigers and the cobras. 

In this swamp there was born, one happy day, a 
little babe who grew up to be a carpenter. That was 
what the people called him — the Carpenter — though 
he did work that no carpenter ever did before. For 
not only did he build noble homes in place of the 
filthy huts, but he taught the people how to make 
drains so that the ground became sweet and firm. 
How to quarry rock to lay upon this firm ground. 

7 



8 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

How to cut roads through the jungle and let in the 
blessed sunlight and the clean, purifying air. How to 
build a city" with splendid public edifices and merry, 
peaceful homes. How to raise the lofty cathedral in 
the midst of it all. 

And then the Carpenter died ; but as he died, almost 
with his last breath he said to the weeping men around 
him : " Do not stop here. Go ye into all the swamp 
and redeem it. Go ye. Go." 

Then for a few years they obeyed the Carpenter's 
behest, and extended the borders of their pleasant 
city wonderfully. But before long they began to 
grow, lazy, and quite too well satisfied with the fair 
domain already won. They built a high wall over 
which no tiger could leap. ' They soon forgot that 
there was a swamp beyond, and the Carpenter's last 
words passed entirely out of memory. 

But the miasma was there, and often it crept over 
the wall and stole in swift desolation among the mar- 
ble palaces. And the tigers were there, nor could 
these selfish folks quite close their ears to the screams 
of the tigers' victims. For still there were millions of 
people in the swamp, and still it extended for leagues 
beyond the city of the Carpenter — an ever-present 
threat and a silent accusation. 



The^tory is a sad one, because it is true. God be 
praised that with every year it is growing less true ! 
God be praised that he gives us young people some 
share in the draining pf the swamp, in obeying the 
blessed Carpenter! 



A MISSIONARY SOCIETY.... 9. 

This is to be the motive of our missionary work — 
simple obedience. " Go ye," Christ has said ; "make 
disciples of all nations." And it is our life to obey. 

No other incentive is needed to make every Chris- 
tian Endeavor society a missionary society. There 
is no need of the addition of our impelling motto, 
" For Christ and the Church." There is no need to 
urge that missionary work will increase the members' 
interest in the society, that it will brighten all the 
prayer meetings, stimulate the singing, vivify the 
testimony, make the prayers vital ; that it will send us 
all with new zest to the Bible ; that it will inculcate a 
liking for the best reading, make us more liberal in 
every direction, and greatly improve the discipline of 
the society by setting all its members to work ; that it 
widens immensely the intelligence, putting us in touch 
with the most important of events, with the most 
essential history. All of this is true, and all of it adds 
to the argument for making our societies missionary 
societies. But it is all on too low a level for those 
that have taKen our great pledge to do "whatever He 
would like to have us do." 

Thy command is enough, Lord Jesus. Thy words 
are the way of joy, and we will follow therein. Thy 
kingdom come, and Thy will be done, on earth as it 
is in heaven. For Thine is the kingdom, and the 
power, and the glory. 



IO THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 



CHAPTER II. 
THE MISSIONARY COMMITTEE. 

What It Is. — If any committee in the society should 
consist of enthusiasts, it is this committee. If any 
should be inventive and persistent, courageous and 
prayerful, it is these workers for the advancement of 
the Kingdom. They should not be mere theorists. 
No one can hope to get others interested in missions 
who is not a missionary himself ; who is not ready, 
that is, to go anywhere God wants him to go, and 
do whatever God wants him to do, to win souls for 
Christ, — and this although he may go no farther than 
his own household, or the family next door. 

The committee should be a praying committee. It 
will fail if it does not remember its power : " Lo, I am 
with you alway." 

No one should be placed upon this committee for 
the sake of converting him to missions ; let the com- 
mittee do that. It maybe necessary to place upon 
this committee a few of the workers for term after 
term ; but if they are genuine missionary enthusiasts, 
the society will gain thereby. Only— let the com- 
mittee never forget that its success, and its only 
success, lies in making the other Endeavorers as 
enthusiastic as the committeemen are themselves. 

Definite Aims. — The mission field is so extensive 
that no committee has greater need of definite aims 



THE MISSIONARY COMMITTEE. I I 

than the missionary committee. Choose these goals 
early in the term of office. Be specific : so many books 
to be read by each member; so much money to be 
given ; so many missionary meetings to be held ; so 
much information to be presented and mastered. Do 
not be too ambitious, or you will accomplish noth- 
ing ; but anything is better than not being ambitious 
enough ! 

In Every Meeting.— Seek to get into every regular 
prayer meeting of the society something about mis- 
sions. Nearly every topic presented to our Christian 
Endeavor societies has its missionary aspect. Appoint 
different members of the committee in turn to develop 
this side of the theme. 

The Committee Organized. — Subdivide the work of 
the committee so that each may know what he has 
to do, and be responsible for some particular task. 
One may be the secretary ; another the treasurer, and 
have charge, not only of the collecting of money, but 
of the Tenth Legion, and of other spurs to increased 
benevolence. Another may be librarian, unless it 
seems best to give the library in charge of some En- 
deavorer outside the committee. At any rate, he will 
seek to promote missionary reading and study. Still 
another will be corresponding secretary, and carry on 
the letter-writing. The relief work will be placed in 
the hands of another, the missionary meetings in the 
hands of another, the missionary socials will be 
assigned to another, the work in newspaper and 
magazine clipping to another, and so on. Each 
committeeman will be chairman of the entire com- 
mittee for the purpose of carrying on his especial 



12 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

work ; and each month, for the sake of variety and 
drill, these tasks will be shifted. 

The Nucleus. — It may not be possible at once to 
organize a missionary study class in your society, out- 
side of the missionary committee ; but that committee 
itself should surely constitute itself a study class, and 
go right ahead in the systematic pursuit of missionary 
information. It should meet regularly and often — 
say once every two weeks ; and each committee meet- 
ing should be a meeting for the study of some mis- 
sionary field, or other definite missionary theme. If 
a five-minute report of each of these studies is given 
to the society at its next meeting, and if the report is 
brightly made, it 'will not be long before the othe r 
Endeavorers will begin to question whether such 
study would not be a good thing for them also. 

Committee Leadership. — For training and for va- 
riety, let the entire committee lead the first missionary 
meeting of the season. The committee will sit facing 
the society, and some part in the work of leading will 
be assigned to each by the chairman. Thus the so- 
ciety will learn, at the very outset of the term, just 
who are on the missionary committee, and the mem- 
bers of the committee will be impressed with their 
responsibility. 

Home and Foreign Committees. — For some reason — 
chiefly the abundance of good literature on the foreign 
fields — most missionary meetings, of young folks and 
old folks alike, deal with the foreign rather than the 
home fields, and this in spite of the fact that the pref- 
erence of most Christian pocketbooks is for the home- 
mission collection-box. Now, of course, we believe 



THE MISSIONARY COMMITTEE. 1 3 

that the field is one, at home or abroad, and to make 
sure of an even presentation of its needs it may be 
well to divide the missionary committee into two sub- 
committees, one for home and the other for foreign 
missions, each to conduct a meeting in turn. Let the 
various members of the committee take turns in serv- 
ing on each of these committees. 

Personal Work. — Divide the members of the society 
among the committeemen, giving each a group of 
Endeavorers with whom he may talk, to get them 
interested in missions. One may need to read more ; 
another, perhaps, ought to be giving more ; a third 
should be influenced to pray more for missions, and 
so on. 

A Scrap-Book Apiece. — Some societies have a pleas- 
ant system of assigning to each member of the mis- 
sionary committee a missionary country upon which 
he collects all kinds of clippings, pictures, and the 
like, and pastes them in a scrap-book given him for 
that purpose. Of course the committeemen exchange 
scraps and aid one another. At the close of the term 
of office these scrap-books are presented to the society, 
each being prefaced with a written message from its 
editor, and the whole forms a fine addition to the 
missionary library. As an adjunct to this labor, the 
several committeemen may be asked to correspond 
each of them with a missionary in the country he is 
studying for his scrap-book. 



14 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 



CHAPTER III. 

MISSIONARY MEETINGS. 

A Good Missionary Meeting should be different from 
the last good missionary meeting. It should present 
missionary information not only in such a way that it 
can be remembered, but in such a way that it cannot 
be forgotten. It should not only make missionary 
students, but create mission-lovers. If your meeting 
puts people to sleep, it matters not how good it is — 
or, rather, it is not good at all. There is not in all the 
world a subject more interesting than missions, and 
uninteresting missionary meetings are the most inex- 
cusable kind of uninteresting meetings. That the 
missionary meeting should be spiritual, that it should 
be full of the spirit of prayer, that it should instruct, 
that it should promote beneficence — all this, although 
it may sound strange to say it — comes after the one 
requirement that it be interesting. Interest in mis- 
sions once gained, the marvellous facts will do the 
rest ; they will provoke prayers and gifts and earnest 
study. 

With these beliefs in mind, I have planned and col- 
lected the following schemes for missionary meetings. 
They will certainly be found to be diversified, and I 
know they are workable. It is my prayer that they 
may be worked '/ 

Be Original. — The plans given in this chapter — 



MISSIONARY MEETINGS. I 5 

and, for that matter, in this entire book — are not to 
take the place of your own invention. They are 
intended to help you form your own plans and to 
supplement the plans you may form yourself. Indeed, 
your own plan is better for you than a much better 
plan that is not your own, and your society, as well as 
yourself, is likely to take more interest in it. Use 
printed exercises, but also make up your own ; and 
use these schemes for missionary meetings, but also 
get up a few on your own account. 

Missionary Bands. — This is an ideal plan for mis- 
sionary work, provided it is not held to so long that it 
becomes stereotyped. Divide the society into as 
many groups as your denomination has important 
mission fields — the China Band, the Japan Band, the 
African Band, etc. Each band will have a leader who 
will superintend its work. It will be the business of 
the bands to study their respective countries and pre- 
pare meetings upon them to be held during the year, 
each band presiding over its own meeting. Thus you 
are quite sure that every member of the society will 
do some definite missionary reading, and also that all 
the missionary work of your denomination will be laid 
before the society during the year. A beneficial 
emulation among the bands is likely to be aroused, 
each striving to present the best meeting. 

The Number of Missionary Meetings to be held dur- 
ing the year depends, - of course, on the progress 
already made in missionary interest. Four are laid 
down in the uniform topics prepared by the United 
Society of Christian Endeavor, one each quarter ; but 
as soon as the society has developed sufficient enthusi- 



1 6 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

asm to warrant it, by all means drop some of the other 
topics and substitute missionary meetings for them. 
You should have at least as many missionary meet- 
ings in the course of the year as your denomination 
has important mission fields. 

The Topics of the regular missionary meetings laid 
down in the United Society's list of topics are of 
necessity general. The societies may substitute for 
these general topics the consideration of special fields 
in which they are interested, or they may use the gen- 
eral topic and add to it whatever exercises they please 
bearing on their special studies. If the general topic 
is used, it is well for the missionary committee to pre- 
pare a large number of practical questions applying 
that topic to the actual missionary work of their 
denomination. Give these questions to the members 
beforehand, that they may come prepared to answer 
them in the meeting. 

When It Is Timely. — The missionary committee 
should be prompt to seize upon subjects of timely 
interest. While the war was in progress between this 
country and Spain was the time of all others in which 
to arouse interest in missions in Spain and the West 
Indies. Do not hesitate to break in upon your pro- 
gramme whenever any missionary country comes into 
special prominence, and hold a meeting upon that 
country. 

The Meeting Before the missionary meeting should 
always be made a preparation for it, to a certain ex- 
tent. The plans for that meeting should be unfolded, 
unless even longer notice has been necessary. What- 
ever is required from the members should be clearly 



MISSIONARY MEETINGS"" I 7 

'explained, and prayers should be offered for its 
success. 

: Keep the Pledge. — Missionary meetings are very 
likely to be filled up with a few speakers/ This 
should be avoided as often as possible* but whenever 
it seems best that only a few should take part at 
length, be sure to give some opportunity in the course 
of the meeting for every one to fulfil his pledge to 
" take some part in every meeting." Sentence pray- 
ers for- missions afford one opportunity ; the repeat- 
ing of missionary Bible verses, another: In calling 
for this, expressly request those to whom parts" have 
been assigned for the evening not" to take' part in 
this exercise. An excellent way is at the close of the 
meeting to ask' the entire society to rise arid as J tneir 
participation in the meeting to read in concert' some 
appropriate hymn from the song-book; or some' pas- 
sage from the Bible that has beencopied on a large 
sheet of paper or on the blackboard, so that all can 
read it. . " , ; -\ 

Assignment Slips. — Do not trust to folks' memo- 
ries. Whenever the missionary committee wants 
anything done by a member — whether it r be to write 
'an essay, make a talk, lead in prayer, or read a single 
item— "let it write upon a piece of paper "the 'mem- 
ber's name, date of the meeting, subject, *and time 
alloted. Then there will be no mistake about it f " 

Appropriate Decorations should not be'rese'rved- for 
the missionary, social alone. Use them to' brighten 
up the regular missionary meeting also. " The flag of 
the country you are to study, a vase* full V6t> the* flow- 
ers associated with it-pictures o£missitfn s^etfe-s'oii £he 



1 8 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

walls, even though they are not referred to during the 
evening, have their effect and contribute to the interest 

Do Not Read. — Many missionary meetings are 
quite spoiled by the dull reading of selections from 
periodicals. This is the cheapest, easiest, and least 
effective method of carrying on a missionary meeting. 
Better present a single fact, looking your audience in 
the eye and using your own natural words, than pre- 
sent fifty facts in the most eloquent language, if the 
language is another's, and you have to read it. "Say 
. it in your own words " should be the constant exhor- 
tation of the missionary committee whenever they 
give out missionary articles or books upon which a 
report is expected. 

The Last Ten Minutes of a regular meeting may 
be set aside for a course of missionary study if you 
cannot get systematic missionary information before 
the society in any other way. This weekly ten min- 
utes, if wisely used, filled with pointed essays and 
bright talks, the whole being fixed by short questions, 
will soon suffice to give the Endeavorers an outline of 
missionary history in general and the history of your 
denomination's missions in particular. 

An Examination may well be held at the close of 
each missionary meeting. Announce at the opening 
of the meeting that it will be held. Appoint one of 
the best members to conduct it. Give him five min- 
utes for the exercise. He will ask sharp, pointed 
questions, which can be answered in few words, and 
which cover the important points of information 
brought out during the evening. The answers are to 
fee given in concert, and if they are weak on any 



MISSIONARY MEETINGS. 1 9 

point, the examiner will ask the same question over 
again further on. 

A Summarist. — If for any reason it is not thought 
best to hold the examination, appoint a " summarist," 
who will watch the evening's exercises carefully and 
fill a few minutes at the end with a review of the 
most important points brought out. Be sure to save 
time for him. The danger of our missionary meet- 
ings is that they will leave nothing behind them in 
the mind. Nothing is taught unless something is 
remembered. Remember that ! 

Home Missions. — The difficulty of getting good 
material for home-mission meetings should make you 
especially zealous for this branch of the subject. 
Try to hold as many home-mission meetings as for- 
eign. Spend one evening telling the noble story of 
how Whitman saved Oregon. Spend another on 
Brainerd and Eliot and the other early missionaries 
to the Indians. Such a book as Puddefoot's -'" Min- 
utemen on the Frontier " (New York : T. Y. Crowell 
and Co. $1.25) or any of Egerton R. Young's books, 
will prove, of intense interest. Subscribe to all the 
home-mission magazines you can. You will find 
them pulsing with the life-blood of heroes. 

Use the Student Volunteers, if any are in your 
neighborhood. These earnest young men and women 
are always glad to address young people's societies 
on the subject so dear to their hearts, and a meeting 
led by one of them serves a double purpose — it in- 
spires and instructs the society, and it shows the vol- 
unteers that we are deeply interested in their work 
and purposes. 



2D THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

"Anniversaries. — Make a list of the days of birth or 
of death of great missionaries, and hold meetings oc- 
casionally, on or near such anniversaries, to consider 
their lives. For example, John E. Clough was born 
on June 16, and Fidelia Fiske arrived at Oroomiah 
on June 14, and Carey sailed for India, and Judson 
reached Burmah, on June 13 — anniversaries that 
should add much interest to any. missionary meeting 
held during that week. "The Missionary Daily 
Text-Book" (New York: The Fleming H. Revell 
Co.) is a useful compilation, if any one is in search of 
these facts. 

" The Missionary Bulletin. " — This is a home-made 
missionary periodical. It may appear once a quarter 
•or oftener. Its editor should be some one interested 
in missions, and also — a good coaxer ! He will write 
the editorials, and as little besides as he can. Fill 
the paper with thoughts upon missions, original po- 
ems, bits of mission news collected by the members, 
spurs to more generous giving. Do not forget a bit 
of fun now and then. Put it in regular newspaper 
form, and do not omit the advertisements. Even 
these, however, should be harmonious, for you may 
advertise for missionary pocketbooks, missionary 
hands, and missionary tongues. 

" Fuel for Missionary Fires " is a book by Belle M. 
Brain, published by the United Society of Christian 
Endeavor, and sold for 35 cents. It furnishes a great 
deal of material for missionary meetings, and is 
supplementary to the present volume, treating with 
great fulness a number of valuable plans for mission- 
ary meetings, and supplying a fund of misssionary 



MISSIONARY MEETINGS. 21 

quotations and the like. All missionary committees 
should have it. 

Missionary Exercises that deal with the work of all 
denominations are not easy to find, and so I mention 
here the series published by the United Society of 
Christian Endeavor. This series is especially full in 
the subjects connected with the American continent. 

A Biography Meeting. — One of the best kinds of 
missionary meetings is based simply on a single he- 
roic life devoted to the great cause. Get as many 
copies of the biography as you can, and set as many 
as possible to reading it. If you have only one copy, 
those that are to participate in the meeting might 
well gather in some home and read the book together, 
each taking notes on the part he is to talk about. 
Divide the life by topics. If Carey, for instance, is 
the theme, you will ask one to tell about his antece- 
dents and early life ; another to tell about the begin- 
ning of the first missionary society ; others to describe 
the establishment of the first English mission, the 
Serampore Brotherhood, Carey's work as a trans- 
lator, as a teacher, as a practical business man, as a 
scientist, as a preacher, a soul-winner, the story of his 
death, the summary of his life work. Maps and all 
sorts of pictures showing Hindoo places and customs 
should be exhibited. If each person speaks briefly 
and to the point, such a meeting as this, dealing with 
such men as Martyn, Paton, Mackay, Patteson, Duff, 
Heber, Morrison, Gilmour, Hannington, Moffatt, 
Livingstone, Judson, Hamlin, Coan, and others al- 
most beyond number, cannot fail to leave behind it a 
profound impression, and to influence for missions 



22 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

all that are present, and especially those that take 
part. 

A Progress Meeting. — This meeting might come at 
the end of the year's work. It is for the purpose of 
noting the encouraging omens all over the world. 
Assign the different mission fields to different En- 
deavorers, and instruct each to note the favorable 
signs in the region he is treating. If there are dark 
clouds, for this once pass them by. Make it a halle- 
lujah meeting. 

A Catechism Meeting. — One of the most attractive 
of missionary meetings, a meeting especially valuable 
because of the number of Endeavorers it brings in, is 
one made up entirely of questions and answers. The 
leader or the committee must prepare beforehand as 
many questions as there are members in the society, 
and write out short answers for the more inexperi- 
enced, or give them the facts that they may write out 
answers for themselves. Here is a sample set of 
such questions : — 

How many Christians are in the world, and how many not Chris- 
tians ? 

How much would an average yearly gift of one dollar from each 
Protestant in the world increase the funds of the foreign-mission 
boards ? 

How much per member does our denomination give each year for 
home missions? for foreign missions? 

In what country are our denominational missions now most flour- 
ishing ? least nourishing ? 

Is there any country or group of islands in the world to which the 
gospel of Christ has not been taken ? 

What is the most discouraging mission field ? 

Whom do you consider the three greatest missionaries to Africa? 

What missions of our denomination are the oldest ? 

What country has the most missions of our denomination ? 



MISSIONARY MEETINGS. 2J 

What mission field of our denomination has been completely won, 
and the work closed up ? 

In what parts of India are our denominational missions ? 

What is the greatest missionary society in the world ? 

In what country do Methodist missions lead all others ? Congrega- 
tional? 

When was our foreign missionary society formed? 

Who were the first missionaries of our denomination? 

Where, at present, are the leading centres of our own home-mission 
work? 

What missionary periodicals does our church publish ? 

Who do you think are the six greatest men among our denomina- 
tional missionaries of the past and present? 

In general, what is the present condition of our missions in Japan? 

How much money has this society pledged to missions for this 
year? 

What is tithe-giving, and what are its advantages ? 

What is the most interesting book on missions you ever read ? 

Who is your favorite missionary hero ? 

What are some of the words of Christ that command missionary 
enterprises ? 

It will be seen that these questions are intended to 
arouse original thought, as well as to promote investi- 
gation and give a sort of bird's-eye view of the mis- 
sion field. Scores of such questions can be answered 
in the course of an hour. It is a good plan to save 
time at the close of the meeting for a review, the 
same questions being asked at random, «.nd the en- 
tire society being expected to reply in concert. Or at 
another meeting the programme may be repeated 
without change for the purpose of fixing the facts in 
mind. 

A Language Meeting. — So much of missionary suc- 
cess has been based upon the study of the strange 
languages of this Babel of a world that a missionary 
meeting may with profit be based upon the same 



2 A THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

study.. .Take, for instance, a large home-made outline 
map of India. Make from brightly colored adhesive 
paper a set' of circular wafers, one color for each of 
India's, great dialects — the Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, 
Tamil, etc. Each wafer will be given to a different 
Endeavorer, who will come forward when the leader 
calls and fix it to the map in the proper place, at the 
same time telling something about the language — 
how many persons speak it, what great missionaries 
have worked in that region, something about the char- 
acter of the people, and the like. In this way the 
polyglot nation of Egypt may be studied, and even 
such a country as China, whose languages are not so 
diverse — yet here there are the" languages of the dif- 
ferent classes,' the written and the spoken languages. 
The difficulties of these different tongues, the triumphs 
missionaries have won over them, the pioneers in 
language-study in each country, the influence of trans- 
lations and of the establishment of a native literature 
r-^all these, and many similar themes will readily come 
to mind. Of course, if you can, you will get hold of 
the foreigners themselves, and get audible specimens 
of the languages you are studying. 
^Missionary Women. — Since so large a part of the 
Endeavorers are young women, we should have at 
least one meeting entirely devoted to missionary 
heroines. Buckland's " Women in the Mission Field " 
(New York: Thomas Whittaker. 50 cents) will fur- 
nish abundant material, but it should be supplemented 
with studies of the women that are now doing noble 
work for your own missionary boards, and with such 
famous stories as that of Mrs. Judson. -,- £ 



MISSIONARY MEETINGS. 25 

A Modern Miracles Meeting. — The wonderful hap- 
penings on the mission field are the nearest approach 
to miracles we have in modern times, and furnish the 
most convincing proofs of Christianity. Using such 
books as Dr. Pierson's " Miracles of Missions," first 
and second series (New York : Funk and Wagnalls, 
Si.oo) crowd some evening full of brief accounts of 
these marvellous events. When you tell about the 
"Lone Star" mission, hang a silver star before the 
audience. When you tell about Murray's work for 
the blind in China, hang by the side of the star a pair 
of dark glasses. A small spear, the point dipped in 
red ink, or a rainbow of pasteboard nicely painted, 
will illustrate the story of Madagascar. In the same 
way other symbols may be added as the evening pro- 
gresses. 

Medical Missions will make a splendid theme for a 
separate meeting. The story of Dr. Mackenzie, in 
Beach's "Knights of the Labarum," (Chicago : Stu- 
dent Volunteer Movement) is a sample of the many 
inspiring lives that may be studied. The missionary 
magazines are full of noble proofs of the value of 
medical missions, and short anecdotes may be collected 
to almost any extent. The meeting might well begin 
with a recital of the need in heathen countries of care 
for the body. It is a gruesome tale. Several Endeav- 
orers should speak, each taking up one country. Then 
should come the stories of medical missions, and of 
how they have opened the way for the gospel. Close 
with the song, " The Great Physician." 

A Curio Meeting. — To this meeting each member 
will bring some object from missionary lands, if only 



26 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

a picture of a foreign scene. He will exhibit this to 
the society and say a word about missions in line with 
what he has shown. Do not announce this meeting 
until by private interviews you have assured yourself 
of a basis for its success. 

A Picture Meeting. — This is so much like the curio 
meeting that it should not be held the same year. Ask 
every member of the society to bring some missionary 
picture, and tell something about it. It may be a 
scene in China, the picture of a Parsee priest, the 
portrait of a missionary, a sketch of a South African 
kraal, a scrap of Chinese printing. Whatever it is, 
let it be shown and a word be said about it. The 
society should sit in a compact body that the pictures 
may readily be seen, and at the close they might be 
passed from hand to hand, the title being written upon 
each. In this way much may be learned, and very 
pleasantly. 

Missionary Debates. — Two or more will speak on a 
side, according to the time you have at your disposal. 
Of course there will be no display of oratory, only an 
earnest presentation of the case from the differing 
view-points. " Was Henry Martyn's life a failure or 
a success?" is a possible subject, although a rather 
one-sided one. Other suggestions are these: "Is it 
advisable to send out unmarried missionaries?" 
" Should our missionaries engage to any considerable 
extent in the work of secular education ? " " Is it best 
that missionaries should labor in secular occupations 
for the support of their missions ? " 

A Board Meeting. — If your denomination has several 
missionary boards, hold one meeting early in the year, 



MISSIONARY MEETINGS. 2J 

in which you will try to fix clearly the different lines 
of activity of the various boards. Divide the even- 
ing among them, and treat each in a succession of 
talks or little essays, whose subjects might be: the 
history of the board, its present field of work, its great 
men, the books and magazines connected with its 
work, its present needs, its most glorious triumphs. 

A One-Field Meeting. — It is often well to spend an 
entire evening upon one particular field. I do not mean 
a single country but a portion of a country, such as 
the province of Foochow, the Tamil district of South 
India, the Dakota tribe of Indians. The minute 
knowledge that can thus be gained gives one a sense 
of mastery such as a wider survey cannot give. 

A Missionary Picnic. — The essence of a picnic is 
that everybody brings something. Get up a missionary 
meeting on that plan, having it understood that each 
person in the society is to bring some item of mission- 
ary interest. The leader will place before the society 
a map of the world, and will point to each mission 
field as he calls for the items from that field that may 
have been brought. After each field, call for brief 
prayers for the work there, especially remembering 
the needs of the persons that may have been mentioned 
in the items contributed. The missionary committee 
should have a few items ready to give out to the care- 
less, but if the plan is thoroughly announced for sev- 
eral weeks beforehand, these items will hardly be 
drawn upon. 

A Twelve-Facts Meeting. — At the rate of one fact a 
minute, you can get into the hour five times twelve 
facts, with the probability that time enough will be 



28 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

left for the opening, for singing, and for prayers, 
.Choose, therefore, five important missionary fields, 
such as China, India, Africa, South America, and the 
home field. Take sixty Endeavorers, and ask each to 
come prepared to give one missionary fact belonging 
to the country assigned him. If you have fewer than 
sixty members, appoint some to double duty. Let all 
the facts about China, say, be given first. Follow 
with prayers for China, then go on to the other 
countries. 

Denominational Dates. — To fix the times when the 
various missionary boards of your denomination were 
founded, and when they began work in various fields, 
as well as the dates of other events important in the 
missionary history of your denomination, make a ser- 
ies of pasteboard squares, and in each print one of 
these dates, with a brief statement of the fact, as: 
" Home Board founded, 1836." Give each placard to 
an Endeavorer, with instructions to say a few words 
on that subject. Set in front of the room a wooden 
upright. Hooks in this correspond to eyes in the 
placards, which are hung upon the upright, as the 
talks are made, in the order of the years, thus forming 
a kind of denominational family tree. 

A Map Meeting.— Issue a call for short missionary 
items, to be written out in the language of the member 
and read by him at the meeting. Each Endeavorer 
will go to the front of the room, read his item, and 
then pin it upon a map of the world in the proper 
place. Of course it will be better if you have a series 
of large home-made maps of the various mission coun- 
tries, as these will not be injured by the pins and will 



MISSIONARY MEETINGS. 29 

show the geography on a larger scale than a map of 
the world. 

An Impersonation Meeting. — Ask a number of mem- 
bers to study up, each of them, the life of some living 
missionary in such a way that he can speak in that 
missionary's character at the coming meeting. Repre- 
senting Dr. Greene, for instance, John Saunders will 
tell something about his own work among the Coreans, 
using the first person all the way through. The meet- 
ing may be varied by assigning to some members 
such characters as a native Persian, an Arab, a Mo- 
hammedan priest, a Jew of Russia. Have your bright- 
est speaker lead off in this exercise, to set the pace 
for the rest. 

A Diagram Meeting. — Give each member a mission- 
ary fact that can be illustrated by a diagram, and get 
him to prepare it and show it at the next missionary 
meeting, with an explanation. Such a book as " The 
Missionary Pastor " (New York : Fleming H. Revell 
Co. 75 cents) will be very helpful here. For exam- 
ple, the gifts to foreign missions by decades in the 
present century may be shown by a number of squares, 
each gloriously larger than the one before it. Islam 
may be shown as a tree, and on the branches may be 
written the names of some of the dreadful things that 
are the outgrowths from that false faith. 

A Missionary Tour through different missionary 
lands will make up a good meeting. Appoint a sepa- 
rate guide for each stage of the journey. 

Suppose you desire to go to Siam. One Endeav- 
orer will take you across our country, not forgetting 
to point out the great home-mission fields. A second 



30 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

guide will put you on board ship at San Francisco 
and carry you to Hawaii, escorting you around those 
islands and telling you of their wonderful missionary 
history. So by easy stages you will get to Japan, to 
Shanghai, to the Malay Peninsula, and finally com- 
plete your journey with a tour of Siam. Limit each 
guide to five minutes. 

Heroes and Heroines. — For this meeting ask each 
member to name some missionary that has done great 
things for God, telling one of the great things accom- 
plished. Of course the country in which the mission- 
ary works should be named, and some member of the 
society should sit by a map with a pointer to locate 
each missionary as he is named. It will add interest 
to the meeting if the young women be asked to name 
missionary heroines and the young men missionary 
heroes ! 

A Kingdom-Come Meeting. — Ask each member in 
preparation for this meeting to think over the history 
of the past month and choose some event that has a 
definite relation to the coming of the Kingdom. Then 
let him tell what that relation is. It may be immedi- 
ate, such as the granting of freer religious liberty in 
a South American state, or it may be less direct, such 
as an improvement in printing. 

Around the Christian Endeavor World. — An evening 
spent in a review of Christian Endeavor in all lands 
may be made full of missionary interest. It will show 
us the possibilities of the natives as few other exhibits 
can. A file of The Christian Endeavor World will 
furnish an abundance of material in the way of reports 
and pictures. A little exertion will cbtain for you a 



MISSIONARY MEETINGS. 3 I 

letter from some native Endeavorer in each mission 
field of the world. 

A Missionary Question-Box. — You will not go far in 
your missionary studies without exciting questions, 
and an opportunity for these should be given. The 
first question-box need occupy only part of an even- 
ing, and the missionary committee should provide a 
number of questions to be used in case the members 
of the society are not in an interrogative mood. Ques- 
tions may be expected on the different religions, on 
different plans of missionary organization, on prob- 
lems of tithe-giving, on the customs of the heathen 
world, on the progress of the Kingdom. The leader 
should invite to the meeting some of the best informed 
church-members, to whom he may refer the more diffi- 
cult questions. 

An Answer-Box is similar, except that a general 
question is propounded and the society is asked to 
contribute answers to it. Some such questions as 
these may be used for answer-boxes : " What is the 
chief qualification for missionary work? " "What is 
the most interesting story of missions ? " " Who was 
the world's greatest missionary? Why?" "Why 
should we give at least a tenth of our incomes to the 
Lord ? " 

A Missionary News-Box is made up of bits of mis- 
sionary information contributed by all the members. 
Every one must put in something, and no one may 
put in more than three items. Limit the total num- 
ber of words to one hundred, so that, if any one 
gives two or three items, each must be very short 
indeed. After the items have- been collected, redis* 



32 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

tribute them and have them read, no one reading 
his own. 

A Prophecy Meeting. — One speaker will tell the 
worst things he knows about heathen lands, picturing 
the darkness of the dark countries under their degrad- 
ing religions. He will be followed by other speakers 
who will prophesy of the future that Christianity will 
inaugurate. One will tell what changes may be ex- 
pected as a result of the entrance of Christian com- 
merce and civilization. Another will foresee the com- 
ing triumphs of Christian education. Others will 
speak of what God is going to accomplish through 
Christian commerce, Christian literature, Christian 
physicians. ' Others will tell of coming changes in 
society and government, in the homes and the daily life. 

A One-Missionary Evening. — This is to introduce 
some living missionary in whom the society may come 
to have a personal interest — not a great missionary, 
perhaps, but one who has visited the church or is re- 
lated to some church-member, or some one to whom 
you have recently sent money. Find out about his 
early life, his college days, his missionary work. Sing 
his favorite hymns. Get letters from him, and have 
them read. Show his photograph. Pray for him and 
for his converts. 

Cl Early in the Morning." — '■ There is much in the in- 
terest aroused by novel surroundings, and a meeting 
held at a time different from usual is almost certain to 
'be better than usual. Some societies have applied 
this principle to missionary meetings, and have found 
that a missionary meeting held the very first thing on 
• the Lord's Day gives a magnificent start ■ to the day, 



MISSIONARY MEETINGS. 33 

and stirs up fresh zeal for missions. There is a spec- 
ial fitness in it, too, since missions mean the sunrise 
of hope and joy for the nations. 

Missionary Camps. — Divide the society into groups, 
which you will call camps — the Indian camp, the 
African camp, the Japanese camp, etc. They will sit 
together, the chairs being arranged in circles, and 
each camp will have five minutes in which to fire off 
guns at the rest. The "guns" consist of missionary 
items about the country from which their camp takes 
its name. 

A Quotation Meeting. — Choose three missionaries 
that are good writers — for example, Gilmour of Mon- 
golia, Patteson of the South Seas, and Martyn of 
India and Persia. Make extracts from their writings 
and give them to a number of Endeavorers to read, 
asking each to comment briefly on the sentiment 
expressed. Follow each set of quotations with a 
short talk on the life of the missionary. 

Missionary Martyrs. — This topic is a thrilling one 
for a missionary meeting. To make it a success you 
will need a pretty wide knowledge of missionary biog- 
raphy, or some such book as Croil's "The Noble 
Army of Martyrs" (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian 
Board of Publication. 75 cents). Assign to different 
members the stories of these heroic deaths, and close 
the evening with a talk by the pastor on the lessons 
they teach. 

Bible Translation. — The story of the translation of 
the Bible into the hundreds of languages which, 
before the advent of the missionary, were not even 
written languages, is one of the finest stories of human 



34 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

history, and well deserves an evening to itself. 
Different members may undertake to give accounts of 
the history of Bible translation in different countries, 
and each speaker will become an enthusiast on his 
theme. In addition, great heroism has been dis- 
played by the Bible colporters of the world, and 
wonderful results have sprung from their labors. 
The American Bible Society has a leaflet for free 
distribution giving samples of the various languages 
into which the Bible has been translated. 

A Patience Meeting. — Patience is a lesson all mis- 
sionaries and missionary workers have to learn, and 
the rewards of patience have been illustrated on 
almost every mission field. It will pay you to gather 
up, some evening, the stories of the world's prominent 
mission fields that have had a tedious, tiresome begin- 
ning, years dragging on without a single convert, and 
then a sunburst of success. Nearly every missionary 
biography and the history of nearly every mission 
field will afford you material for this meeting. 

A Missionary Trial is thus conducted. Appoint a 
judge and a jury, and two lawyers for each of the 
three divisions of the debate. The question is, 
" Which agency is doing most for India, — medical 
missions, missionary literature, or evangelism?" One 
from each side will speak first, and then the second 
set of speakers. The judge will charge the jury, and 
finally a verdict will be brought in. 

A Home Meeting will be a pleasant novelty. The 
entire society will be invited to a missionary meeting 
in some private house. The informal arrangement of 
the chairs, the piano for the music, the novel sur- 



MISSIONARY MEETINGS. 35 

roundings, the atlas and globe and other resources of 
the library at hand, the possibility of passing pictures 
around among the company — all combine to make a 
meeting that will be remembered. 

An Exploration Meeting. — This is an imaginary 
journey to a missionary land made by a party of 
Christian explorers, who will report in the first person, 
as if each had actually seen what he describes. There 
will be a geographer, who will describe the physical 
condition of the country, its size, and tne like. Then 
will come the statistician, who will tell about the popu- 
lation, and give other figures, as if he had compiled 
them himself. Xext will come the historian, who will 
tell what he has learned from the people about their 
national history. The rambler will come next, and 
will describe some of the queer customs he has ob- 
served. Two press reporters will speak, one of them 
giving some conversations he has held with the people 
about their systems of government and of education 
and the social conditions generally, and the other de- 
scribing his observations on missionary work in the 
country. Of course the geographer has made a map 
and the rest of them had their cameras and took snap- 
shots, which will furnish the pictures for the evening. 
Some of these travellers, too. may have brought back 
curios from the journey. 

A Missionary Congress. — This meeting may be 
greatly varied. Here is one form of it: Three per- 
sons are chosen to represent each important mission- 
ary country, and at the meeting each of the three is 
presented to the society in order. First will come a 
native priest, who will tell about the heathen religion 



36 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

of the land. Next will come a native woman, who 
will describe the condition of women under the rule of 
heathenism. Finally will come a Christian convert, 
who will tell about missions and what they have done 
for his country. These characters may well be 
dressed in the native costume, if it can be obtained. 

A Missionary Newspaper Evening. — Current events 
in their bearing on missions make a fascinating theme 
for study ; since the missionary now as always is in 
the forefront' of civilization, and where its battles are 
the hottest, he is always to be found. The war 
between India and China was closely involved with 
missionary interests. So were the massacres in 
Armenia. So was the war in Cuba, that in Matabele- 
land, that of the French in Madagascar, and, indeed, 
almost every considerable event of recent years has 
had its important missionary aspects. Besides this, the 
newspapers are full of smaller details that have a 
bearing on missions — the coming of large numbers of 
Japanese to Hawaii, the purchase of the Caroline 
Islands by Germany, the building of a new railroad 
in China, the election of a Mormon to Congress, 
trouble in an Indian tribe. To make this meeting a 
success, give each Endeavorer a particular paper to 
watch, and this will give him a feeling of responsi- 
bility, even though several are set to report upon 
the same paper. It will also be necessary to give help 
to the inexperienced, whose missionary eyes are 
hardly yet opened. 

The Bible and Missions. — Select for each member 
of the society some Bible verse bearing on missions, 
asking him to read it in the next meeting and tell just 



MISSIONARY MEETINGS. 37. 

how it bears on missions. If you are sure the society 
will do it. it will be better to permit them to choose 
their own Bible verses. 

A Statistics Meeting may seem like a formidable 
undertaking, but if you once try it. you will rind it a 
meeting full of unexpected felicities. Use all kinds of 
statistics bearing on missions, and leave it largely to 
the persons to whom you give the figures to present 
them in attractive ways. Be sure, however, to suggest 
these ways to persons that may not think of them 
themselves. The rapidly increasing number of Chris- 
tians in the world, for instance, has been illustrated by 
the figure of a man standing in water which is rising 
as Christianity grows. During the first century it 
comes up to his ankles, and with each following 
period it rises over a greater space. 

A Bird's-Eye View of missionary history is a meet- 
ing easy to prepare and very instructive, needing only 
some such book as Bliss's " Concise History of Mis- 
sions " (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co. 75 cents.) 
or Leonard's " Hundred Years of Missions ". (New 
York: Funk and Wagnalls. Si. 50.) It will be a sur- 
prise to most persons to learn that modern missions 
did not begin with Carey. Draw on a large sheet of 
paper a number of vertical lines to represent the mis- 
sionary history >of the different countries. Draw hori- 
zontal lines across these, dividing them up into 
decades, or quarter centuries, as you please. Prepare 
pasteboard placards which are to be hung on the 
large diagram in the proper place. For instance, a 
bit of pasteboard reading " Martyn, 1811," hung in 
the proper place on the line marked " Persia," will 



38 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

show the beginning of missions in that empire, and it 
should be put in place with a word about that saintly 
young man, his visit to Persia, and his translation of 
the New Testament into the language cf the country. 
When you are done, you will have a summary which 
you will be glad to keep standing before the society 
in future missionary meetings. 

Native Heroism. — Divide this inspiring subject 
among the committees, asking the prayer-meeting 
committee, for instance, to bring to the meeting exam- 
ples of the heroism of African converts, the lookout 
committee to do the same for Japan, etc. Almost any 
missionary biography or history will furnish you with 
many examples. So, also, will current missionary lit- 
erature. 

"The Ten Greatest Missionaries" may furnish the 
basis of a missionary programme. The missionary 
committee will wish to select them, and I will not even 
give my own list, — which is as well, since you would 
not agree to it! Each of the ten lives may be consid- 
ered, in different aspects, by more than one Endeav- 
orer. Do not try to be exhaustive. For Livingstone, 
for instance, it will be enough if one speaks of his 
personal character, a second of his prominent mission- 
ary achievements, a third of the circumstances attend- 
ing his death. 

Your Own Denomination — who are its greatest mis- 
sionaries? This will be a good question to discuss at 
some missionary meeting. Make sure that the claims 
of all the most prominent missionaries are brought 
forward during the evening, and thus you will get a 
review of denominational mission fields. Use a map, 



MISSIONARY MEETINGS. 39 

and place on the scene of each missionary's labors a 
gilt star bearing the initial of his name. 

An Other-Denominations Meeting. — One of the great 
gains from our Christian Endeavor interdenomina- 
tional movement is this, that it is showing each one of 
us how much of noble endeavor and Christlike zeal is 
in other denominations besides our own. Even the 
largest and most missionary of denominations is doing 
only a fraction of the world's missionary work, and 
we are making a great mistake if in our missionary 
meetings, as is so often done, we narrow our vision to 
our own denominational fields. The Presbyterians, 
for instance, have Siam practically to themselves; the 
Congregationalists have Turkey; the United Presby- 
terians have Egypt, and so on. But do not all 
denominations need to know how the kingdom of God 
is progressing in Siam, Turkey, Egypt, and the rest? 
Besides, very likely our own denomination is not doing 
the largest or the most successful work in India or 
China or Japan. Do we not want to know what that 
work is, and to get the inspiration it will give? Of 
course to prepare this i: other denominations " meeting 
requires much study, but if you have the " Encyclo- 
pedia of Missions," it will not be difficult. Use a map 
of the world. Make adhesive labels to stick on the 
countries where each denomination is at work — blue 
for the Presbyterians, red for the Methodists, etc. It 
will not be possible to tell in every case, but wherever 
in any country one denomination has clear precedence 
over the others, add a gilt star to its label. Facts of 
interest about the missionary work of the other de- 



40 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

nominations will be presented as these labels are 
placed on the map. 

Note. — The books mentioned in this chapter, and throughout the 
book, may all be obtained, if desired, at the prices quoted, from the 
United Society of Christian Endeavor, Tremont Temple, Boston. 



MISSIONARY MAPS. 4 1 



CHAPTER IV. 
MISSIONARY MAPS. 



The Use of Maps. — Missionary meetings without 
maps are meetings hung in the air. They do not 
leave any definite impression. On the other hand, 
when maps and similar devices make the attack on 
Eye-gate, the citadel of attention and memory is soon 
ours. Do not take it for granted that any place in 
foreign lands, however familiar to you, is familiar to 
your auditors ; and however often you have already 
pointed it out, point it out again whenever you come 
across it in the meeting, for the sake of the new mem- 
bers and for the forgetful among the old members. 

Home-Made Maps are the essentials; "boughten" 
maps are the luxuries. The home-made maps are the 
best because the process of making them has taught 
somebody something, and because, since they are mere 
outlines, one may insert just what is needed for the 
subject under discussion, and leave the rest out. 
Moreover, with the home-made map you can make 
free use of those prime aids to the missionary worker, 
the colored gummed "stickers." Do not be over-crit- 
ical in drawing these maps. It is not necessary to get 
in every bay and every curve of every river. Make a 
few measurements and locate carefully the principal 
features of the map, filling in the rest of the outline 
with eye measurements only. 

A Map-Drawing Evening might be held by the mis- 



42 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

sionary committee at the beginning of its year's work. 
Draft whatever assistance you think you will need. 
Provide a dozen sheets or more of heavy manilla 
paper, ink, coarse pens, black crayon, and water-color 
paints. If you have not a good letterer in your num- 
ber, use stencils or cut out letters from a printer's 
alphabet. Then set to work and turn out the )^ear's 
supply of home-made outline maps. 

Hectographed Maps are an improvement even over 
the maps I have been describing, because every mem- 
ber of the society can have one, and can take it home 
as a souvenir of the meeting and for further study and 
review. Besides, these maps can be made very sim- 
ple, and the Endeavorers can be set to putting in 
various features as they are described during the 
evening. This work of theirs will serve to impress 
the facts upon them. 

The Published Maps of mission fields, however, are 
of great value for reference, and you should get them 
by all means, if you can, and keep them in view cf 
the society at all its meetings. A large missionary 
map of the world may be obtained from the Student 
Volunteer Movement, 283 Fourth Ave., New York 
City, for $3.00. Several of the missionary boards 
publish maps of their principal mission fields. 

Charts of All Kinds may be manufactured by our en- 
terprising committee. A circle may be divided into 
radiating sections, each of a size proportioned to the 
numbers in some great religion of the world. When 
these sections are colored so as to be readily distin- 
guished, the chart will furnish a striking argument for 
missions. The " spheres of influence " of the Eu- 



MISSIONARY MAPS. 43 

ropean nations in Africa and in China maybe shown by 
the use of colors on outline maps. Gilt stars may 
show where your society has sent contributions this 
year. Red hearts, each bearing the initial of a mis- 
sionary, may indicate where the chief missionaries of 
your denomination are at work. You may illustrate 
the fact that China has one medical missionary to two 
and one half million people, and the United States 
four thousand physicians to the same population, by 
making two squares of the same size, placing in the 
centre of one a single dot, and filling the other with 
four thousand dots. You may make a set of squares 
proportioned in size to the population of the different 
countries. In short, there is no end to the bright 
ways in which consecrated pencils, managed by con- 
secrated brains, can preach in black and white. 

Relief Maps showing the principal facts about the 
country's contour, the chief mountain ranges and 
plateaus and valleys, may easily be made, and, once 
made, are a joy forever. Shred newspapers and let 
them soak over night, when they may be beaten up into 
a pulp which you can use for your modeling. A tempo- 
rary map may be made from damp sand or from clay. 
Color your board blue for the water and let this re- 
main uncovered wherever the water is. Then build 
up your map, using wooden blocks for the cities, bits 
of evergreen for forest regions, and the like. 

Dissected Maps may be made to teach missionary 
geography as well as secular. For example, to show 
the language areas of India, make a map of that great 
empire, color the language areas differently,, mount 
the map and cut it apart, one language to a section. 



44 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

The different parts may then be pinned to a board be-" 
fore the society, one at a time, each in the right posi- 
tion, something" being said about each language as it 
is added to the map. 

Gradual Disclosure. — One of the brightest ways to 
use a missionary map is this. Before the meeting 
cover it with pieces of paper, each pinned separately, 
and so arranged that, as the different parts of the 
country are mentioned during the evening, the various 
pieces of paper can be removed one by one, until the 
whole map is disclosed. 

The Comparative Sizes of the countries of the world 
should be shown whenever you place a map before 
the society. Put in one corner the State of Pennsyl- 
vania drawn in the proper proportion. One of the 
most effective missionary maps I ever saw showed 
China with the various European countries set oif 
upon its surface. In the same way the New England 
States might be laid out in one of the great Western 
States of our Union, thus teaching a lesson in home 
missions. 

A Globe is of help in showing the relative positions 
of places and their relative sizes, about which we get 
so confused an idea from the atlas. Little flags may 
flutter from the globe here and there where mission- 
aries of your denomination are at work. 

A Blackboard is a decided help, because upon it 
you can dash off your map as you talk, and rub out 
what is no longer needed. Whatever medium you 
use, whether blackboard or manilla paper, it is an ad- 
vantage not to insert the names beforehand, but to 
print them as you come to them in the course of the 
meeting. 



MISSIONARY MUSIC. 45 



CHAPTER V. 
MISSIONARY MUSIC. 

Index the Eymn-Book. — The missionary committee 
will be met at the outset with a difficulty in regard to 
the hymn-book. It will find the number of hymns 
placed under the category of " Missions " entirely in- 
adequate for a series of meetings. But of course 
many hymns not indexed under this subject are just 
as suitable for missionary meetings. Hymns of pa- 
tience, of courage, of faith, of perseverance, of the 
presence and power of the Spirit, of the spread of the 
Kingdom — all these are essentially missionary hymns. 
The committee may well devote an hour to reviewing 
the entire hymn-book used by the society, marking 
every hymn that is suitable to a missionary meeting, 
and becoming familiar with those that are not well 
known. Then make a special index of these for ready 
reference. 

An Impressive Opening. — Choose a missionary 
hymn that shall be sung at all the missionary meet- 
ings for the year — not some flippant song, but some 
grand hymn of the faith. It should be committed to 
memory, and at the beginning of every missionary 
meeting the entire company should rise and sing the 
hymn with fervor. 

A Missionary Chant will prove still more effective 
for this purpose. There are numbers of psalms that 



46 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

would make noble introductions to your missionary 
meetings, and the society could easily learn to chant 
them. Such a psalm, too, would serve as a useful 
interruption to the course ^©f a missionary meeting, 
exalting its tone if in any way it has fallen below the 
high level of the start. 

Enliven the Ordinary Missionary Meeting with special 
music. There are many noble missionary anthems. 
Antiphonal scngs may easily be arranged from such 
missionary hymns, for instance, as " Watchman, tell 
us of the night," which breaks up so readily into 
question and answer. Solos may be introduced, and 
any good missionary hymn may be very effective if 
sung in this way. 

The Missionaries 7 Hymns. — A little pleasant re- 
search will bring out many facts connecting mission- 
aries with our best hymns. Some of them were writ- 
ten by missionaries. Some of them have been prompted 
by stirring events in missionary history. Many of 
them have been used in great crises on the mission 
fields, or in the lives of missionary heroes. An even- 
ing of song in which the result of these studies is 
mingled with the singing of the hymns to which they 
relate would be a profitable occasion. 

You Can Aid the Church Missionary Meeting greatly 
by forming a Christian Endeavor choir for use on 
such occasions. No parade need be made of the fact. 
The young people will only sit together in any part of 
the room and sing with all their might. It will tell. 

A Missionary Concert. — This name is applied al- 
ways to a " concert of prayer " for missions. Why 
not get up a missionary concert, using the word in its 



MISSIONARY MUSIC. 47 

original sense? There are many beautiful missionary- 
anthems and solos. Each could be prefaced with a 
brief speech calling attention to its lesson. There are 
longer pieces of missionary music suitable for such an 
occasion. I venture to name one by Prof. T. Martin 
Towne and myself, entitled " Sir Money's Crusade," 
published by Fillmore Brothers, Cincinnati. 

Native Music will add much to such a concert, and 
also to any missionary meeting. You may be able to 
get some Turk or Chinese or other native of mission- 
ary lands to sing for you. Foreign ^instruments will, 
of course, add to the interest. 

Song Services in Prisons and Hospitals are lines of 
effort suitable for the missionary committee to take up, 
if you have no special committee for this blessed work. 
The gospel can be sung in both these places more 
effectively than it can be preached. The services of 
song at neighborhood prayer meetings might also 
come within the province of the missionary committee, 
if you have no music committee. 

An Outdoor Song Service is a piece of home mission- 
ary work well worth attempting. It may be made a 
beautiful prelude to the evening service, if there are 
grounds in front of the church that are suitable for it, 
and it will gather to that service many that otherwise 
might not come. But this outdoor song service may 
be held (proper permission being obtained) in any 
part of the city that needs evangelistic effort. The 
sweet hymns, lifted on the fresh young voices, will 
prove the best of church bells, and will draw together 
a crowd anywhere to hear what your pastor may have 
to say to them. In this outdoor work it is much bet- 



48 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

ter if you can sing without any book, looking straight 
into the eyes of the crowd. 

The Music Committee should, of course, work hand 
in hand with the missionary committee in all this, 
provided you have a music committee. Indeed, much 
of this work would properly fall to the music com- 
mittee, and is here mentioned only because so few 
societies dignify music by assigning it to a special set 
of workers. 



MISSIONARY PRAYERS. 49 



CHAPTER VI. 
MISSIONARY PRAYERS. 

Missions and Prayer Go Hand in Hand. — Without a 
sense of the Saviour's presence, and without constant 
real communion with him, no genuine missionary- 
work was ever done. You must gauge the success of 
your labors, missionary committees, not by the size 
of your audience, not by the spirit of your meetings, 
but by the prayers they spur the Endeavorers to 
make spontaneously for the mission fields and mis- 
sionaries in which you have been trying to interest 
them. Believe with all your heart that God answers 
prayer. Know that the prayers of Christians — pray- 
ers and what they incite us to do — are the one thing 
needful for the salvation of the world ; God will do 
everything else. Pray for definite blessings upon 
particular men and places. Expect results. Follow 
up your prayers, and recognize with gratitude God's 
kindness in answering them. 

Prayer in the Meeting. — Encourage the use of 
names in praying for missions in the meetings. After 
some especially important piece of news, let the 
chairman ask some one to offer prayer for the mis- 
sionary or the field that has been mentioned. Pray 
often in the meeting for the places where your con- 
tributions have gone. The Yale Band proposes a 
series of topics for missionary prayer — one for each 



50 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

meeting for six months. If you follow these, you 
will bring before God in prayer all of the great 
phases of missionary work and all the mission fields 
of the world. Silent prayer for some special mission- 
ary, or sentence prayers which take up in turn the 
particular needs of some great mission field, are ex- 
ceedingly helpful. 

A Concert of Prayer. — Name for each month some 
especial missionary station, and call for simultaneous 
prayer for that station at a fixed time every day during 
the month. Let the station know that you are pray- 
ing for their work, all of you. Of course this station 
will be remembered at every meeting in many ways. 
Some societies place on a blackboard the name of 
some missionary each week for the same purpose. 
Do not, however, confuse the members with too 
many calls for prayer. The essential thing is that 
you expect results, and know that God will give 
them. 

Individual Prayer. — Every year give each member 
of the society the name of some missionary whom he 
is to consider his very own, and whom he is to re- 
member every day in his prayers. Of course he will 
find out all he can about him and his work. Of 
course, too, he will write and tell the missionary 
that he is praying for him daily, and this knowledge 
will be to the missionary a constant well of joy and 
courage. Have you ever noticed how continually 
missionaries in their letters are urging us to pray for 
them? It is their one great plea, and they are very 
sincere in making it. 

Historic Prayers* — The annals of missions are full 



MISSIONARY PRAYERS. 51 

of wonderful answers to prayer, and the recitation of 
some of these would make a magnificent missionary 
meeting, besides spurring the members to more zeal 
in praying for missions. Appoint each member to 
some missionary life or field and ask him to give at 
the meeting a single instance, taken from his subject, 
of the proved power of prayer. 



52 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 



CHAPTER VII. 
MISSIONARY READING. 

Hand in Hand. — Missionary inspiration and mission- 
ary information go together. The way to fill mission- 
ary treasuries is to fill missionary heads. To read 
Patoirs life is half a missionary education ! To 
read Mackay's life is the other half ! It is simply im- 
possible for a mind of ordinary earnestness and 
impressibility to peruse any one of a dozen missionary 
biographies that might easily be named, and not 
henceforth be full of missionary enthusiasm. It is 
one of the first duties of the missionary committees to 
prove the truth of this statement. 

A Book Evening. — It would be well to devote an 
entire missionary meeting to the inspiring of interest 
in missionary literature. Get as many different En- 
deavorers as possible to tell about the missionary 
books they have read, and what interesting thing they 
found in each. Get the Sunday-school librarian to 
bring the missionary books from the Sunday-school 
library, show each, and speak briefly about it. Choose 
bright passages from books and magazines, and have 
them read. Show a complete set of sample copies of 
the missionary magazines in which you wish to inter- 
est the society. Close with an address by your pastor 
on the great books of missionary literature with 
which every one should be acquainted. 



MISSIONARY READING. 53 

Missionary Libraries. — One of the very best ways of 
establishing and increasing missionary enthusiasm is 
by the establishing of missionary libraries. Nowa- 
days books are so wonderfully cheap that such an 
undertaking is possible for every society in the land. 
Before you decide that you cannot do it, write to the 
United Society of Christian Endeavor and ask for 
their circulars describing the missionary libraries they 
have to sell. These are all standard works, the very 
best and most up-to-date, and you will be astonished 
to see how trifling is their cost. Such a library, if you 
once get a nucleus and get the Endeavorers interested 
in it, will grow almost without your effort. It is proba- 
bly best to appoint as librarian some one outside the 
committee, because in this way you increase the num- 
ber of those interested in the cause. 

To Start a Library. — Perhaps the best way is to go 
boldly to the members with a subscription paper, and 
ask them for twenty-five-cent subscriptions, making it 
very plain that the subscriptions are by no means 
limited to that amount ! You will soon have enough 
to buy a goodly number of books. If you ask the 
members to give a book apiece, many may wish to 
have that more individual share in the new enterprise 
for the Master. 

A Loan Library. — People are likely to appreciate 
more thoroughly what they pay something for. Take 
advantage of this principle in your missionary work. 
After you have established the missionary library, 
charge five cents apiece for the reading of the books, 
and a fine of a cent a day whenever the books are kept 
beyond two weeks. No one will object to this charge, 



54 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

and thus you will soon gather enough money for ad- 
ditions to the library. 

A One-Book Meeting. — Choose the best missionary 
book you can find, and get as many Endeavorers to 
read it as there are chapters in the book. This will 
take time, but do it. Assign each new reader to a dif- 
ferent chapter of the book, telling him that at a future 
missionary meeting he will be expected to speak for 
one minute on the most interesting point of that chap- 
ter. You may be preparing at the same time for sev- 
eral of these meetings. 

The Six-Star Band. — Enroll under this name those 
of your society that will promise to read six mission- 
ary books during the year. Get some one to give a 
talk on the delights of missionary reading, and after 
this talk make your appeal for members of the Six- 
Star Band. Let them choose their own books, but 
have a list to suggest to them. Urge system — the 
reading of one book every two months. Learn how 
the scheme is progressing, and report from time to 
time before the society, that interest may be aroused 
and new members added to the band. Utilize this 
reading in the missionary meetings. 

How Long? — It is an encouragement to possible 
readers of a book if they can know that it will 
not take long to read it. The missionary commit- 
tee will do well to get a book read through (by a toler- 
ably rapid reader!) before recommending it to the 
society. He will time himself, and every one will be 
astonished to learn how short a time, after all, will 
suffice to read a book, compared with the amount of 
time we spend in reading newspapers and magazines. 



MISSIONARY READING. 55 

Bringing It Home to Each. — If you want to do es- 
pecially thorough work, let each member of the 
missionary committee take a group of the Endeav- 
orers and try to persuade every member of his group 
to read one missionary book, or some good missionary 
magazine, each month. If this is impossible at first, 
satisfy yourself with getting him to read a single bright 
article. The appetite will grow with what it feeds on. 

Fifteen Minutes a Day. — If the members of the 
society think it too much to promise to read one mis- 
sionary book every two months, get them to agree to 
spend fifteen minutes a day in missionary reading. 
This will mean viore than half a book a month, but 
you need not tell them so ! Obtain from each person 
that promises this a monthly report of how the plan 
is working, and stir up things by presenting these 
reports before the society, of course without mention- 
ing names. 

Book Reviews. — Any one will read a book more 
carefully if he knows he is to write or speak upon it 
later. Therefore, whenever you get the Endeavorers 
to read missionary books, put them down on later — 
not too distant — missionary programmes for essays on 
those books ! 

"To Be Continued." — One of the most useful de- 
vices, if you would arouse interest in any missionary 
book, is to read bits of it here and there before the 
society, always reading up to some climax of inter- 
est — and stopping before you reach it! If this is 
brightly done, you may be sure that there will be a 
demand for that book as soon as it is placed in the 
Sunday-school or the society library. 



56 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

A Loan Office. — Once a Christian Endeavor social 
was brightly used to stimulate interest in missionary 
reading. A booth was mysteriously curtained off and 
labelled " International News Agency and Loan 
Office." All were urged to call at the office, and once 
within the solemn purlieus, they were inveigled into 
borrowing missionary books and promising to read 
them through — promises for which they were ever 
afterward grateful. 

Ask Them. — A wise pastor once promoted interest 
in missionary reading simply by asking each Endeav- 
orer to answer in writing these three questions : 
What kind of missionary reading do you like? 
Where do you find it? Would you read more if it 
were brought to your notice ? If the missionary com- 
mittee start out with such a set of inquiries, they will 
set the members to thinking and will find out just 
where they stand in the matter of missionary reading. 

For Illustration. — Each member of the missionary 
committee may choose a missionary book some month 
and read it chiefly with an eye to the prayer-meeting 
topics of the coming month, and in order to find in it 
illustrations and other material suitable for use in 
those meetings. Thus every meeting of the next 
month will be a missionary meeting. 

In the Public Library. — If the public library is ac- 
cessible to the society, by all means make out a list of 
the best missionary books contained in it, with their 
numbers. Have the list duplicated on a manif older, 
and give a copy to every member of the society, with 
an urging to go through the entire set of books, instead 
of reading so much fiction. Be sure to put on your 
list only interesting books. 



MISSIONARY READING. 57 

In the Sunday-School Library. — Probably your 
Sunday-school library contains some delightful mis- 
sionary books. Probably, too, no one reads them. 
Get the superintendent's permission to say a few 
words before the school some Sunday about these 
books. Put their numbers on the blackboard, and ask 
the teachers to interest their scholars in them. Take 
them out yourselves and lend them to those that can 
be persuaded to read them. 

Call In the Sunday-School. — You may be able to 
gain the help of the Sunday school toward forming a 
missionary library in this way. Ask each Sunday- 
school class to add to the Sunday-school library one 
missionary book a year of their own selection. Of 
course the missionary committee will be ready to sug- 
gest good books. In this way each class will be likely 
at least to read its own book, and to tell every one else 
how good it is ! 

To Read Aloud. — The art of reading aloud is pass- 
ing away, now that books are so common, and family 
interests so diversified. Try to restore it, and at the 
same time quicken missionary zeal, by establishing 
neighborhood reading circles. Get together on Essex 
Street the Cadwalladers, the Ashendens, and the 
Stanleys, who will listen to Ruth Ashenden as she 
reads in her clear, sympathetic tones the beautiful 
story of Henry Martyn. Assemble on Lincoln Avenue 
the Partingtons, Huntleys, and Hales, to hear Philip 
Huntley read Dr. Hamlin's fascinating " Life and 
Times." These neighborhood reading clubs will be 
just the thing for the long winter evenings, and their 
results may be used in later missionary meetings. 



58 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

The Encyclopedia. — If your society can afford 
it — and more societies can afford it than think they 
can — by all means purchase a copy of the admirable 
Enclyclopedia of Missions, published in two volumes 
by Funk and Wagnalls. It is an expensive work, 
costing #12 unless you can get a reduction through 
your pastor, but it is worth every cent it costs, being 
the only full and authoritative compendium of the 
world's missionary activities. Its maps and its thous- 
ands of interesting articles will give you material 
for missionary meetings for a decade. 

Pass Them On. — A pleasant device is the following. 
Bind into a home-made booklet some good missionary 
articles, including a missionary story and a missionary 
poem or two, with a few bright paragraphs to enliven 
it. Write on the cover a list of eight or ten Endeav- 
orers who will pass the pamphlet from one to another 
in the order named, each writing below his name some 
comment on the pamphlet as a whole, after he has 
read it, or on some particular article. Of course this 
plan may be carried out as extensively as the commit- 
tee chooses. 

A Collection of Pamphlets. — Much of the most valu- 
able missionary literature is put in pamphlets. Doubt- 
less your denominational boards have issued many of 
these pamphlets, and packed into them a large amount 
of most interesting material, as well as complete state- 
ments regarding your denominational missionary en- 
terprises. Many of the pamphlets are given away; 
others are sold at a nominal cost. For a few dollars 
you can buy a little library of them, not only from 
your board but from all the other great missionary 



MISSIONARY READING. 59 

boards of the land. After you have them, it will add 
much to their life, if you bind them. Do not bind 
them together, but separately, and a home-made bind- 
ing in heavy paper will answer every purpose. And, 
by the way, missionary almanacs and the yearly 
reports of the missionary conferences will constitute 
an important part of this material. 

A Newspaper Committee. — Much that has a distinct 
bearing on missions appears nowadays in the daily 
papers. To gather this up, appoint two or three 
young men as a newspaper committee, whcse duty it 
shall be to report at each missionary meeting what- 
ever they have seen lately in their dailies that concerns 
missionary progress and opportunities. Of course 
each young man should have access to a different 
newspaper. 

The Use of Clippings. — It is pleasant and easy 
work, this collecting of clippings from periodicals ; the 
problem is to make use of the clippings after they are 
collected ! The trouble is always twofold — the clip- 
pings are not systematically arranged, and they are 
not frequently reviewed, so that one has in mind his 
various possessions. This subj ect is important enough 
to warrant the appointment of a clipping committee, 
to act as assistants to the missionary committee. At 
any rate, the missionary committee should place it 
among their most urgent duties. 

All kinds of religious and secular periodicals will 
furnish material for the collection. Here you will get 
an illustrated article on Cuba ; next, a bright little 
story of missionary heroism in Peru ; and again, an 
editorial giving statistics of the missionary progress 



60 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

among the Syrians. Now it will be a picture showing 
the Egyptian costume, useful, possibly, in some future 
missionary meeting. Again, it will be a newspaper 
map of South Africa. So closely are all the interests 
of the world related to missions that the range of these 
clippings is very wide. 

For their preservation and consultation, the en- 
velope system is the most convenient. Get a large 
number of stout manilla envelopes, large enough to 
hold magazine articles and pictures without folding. 
Mark each with the name of the mission field and the 
country. You may go further in your classification, 
and subdivide China, for instance, into Chinese 
government, Chinese customs, Chinese education, and 
the like. 

Then, having your clippings, use them. Issue them 
as you would library books, numbering each clipping 
and recording the name of the borrower. See to it 
that every suitable clipping is at once used in the next 
missionary meeting that touches the country to which 
it relates. After it has been used in this way, place 
upon it a mark signifying that fact, so that you can 
distinguish at a glance what is fresh material, and 
what is not. 

Interest the entire society in this enterprise, for in 
no other way can you cover a wide circle of periodi- 
cals. You will soon find that the older church mem- 
bers will be glad to make use of your collection in 
preparing for their own missionary meetings, and will 
reciprocate the favor by the addition of valuable clip- 
pings from time to time. 

A File of Periodicals. — I strongly recommend your 



MISSIONARY READING. 6 1 

society to gather as complete files as possible of all 
the missionary periodicals of your denomination, and 
of as many others as you can. Very likely you will 
find in the church those that will be glad to give their 
old copies, for the sake of getting rid of them. Home- 
made bindings will answer, if you cannot afford pro- 
fessional work, and they should be bound in yearly 
volumes. Then they should be placed in some case 
convenient of access to all the workers. A card cata- 
logue of their contents should be prepared by the 
committee. The preparation of this will be in itself a 
valuable missionary training, and will furnish occupa- 
tion for many pleasant committee evenings. 

One to a Periodical. — To stimulate interest in the 
missionary periodicals, appoint one Endeavorer a 
special committee on this missionary periodical, an- 
other on a second, another on a third, and so on, until 
you have covered all the missionary periodicals of 
your denomination, as well as one or two general ones. 
These members will be called upon at regular inter- 
vals to report interesting items from their magazines 
and papers. It would be well to make up at least one 
missionary meeting during the year almost entirely of 
such reports. 

Subscription Agents. — Your missionary committee 
will do most important service in the cause of mis- 
sions if they will make it their business to institute a 
thorough canvass of the community each year, for sub- 
scriptions to the missionary periodicals of the denom- 
ination, and to such general periodicals as The Mis- 
sionary Review of the World. Get a full set of 
sample copies. You can sometimes obtain bundles 



62 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

of samples for free distribution. Learn what club 
rates you can get with other periodicals which your 
people may be taking. Go into the work as earnestly 
as if you were to receive a large commission or a fine 
premium. You will receive the best of premiums — 
God's blessing for helpful service. 

The Missionary Review of the World, — This chapter 
would not be complete without mention of this splen- 
did aid to all missionary workers. Your first duty is 
to see that your denominational missionary magazines 
are taken liberally in the society; but in addition to 
this you should have in the society at least one copy 
of the magazine whose scope is the missionary activ- 
ities of all denominations and nations. A file of this 
magazine from the beginning would be an inexhaus- 
tible mine of missionary lore. 



MISSIONARY STUDY CLASSES. 63 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MISSIONARY STUDY CLASSES. 

Easily Possible. — A missionary study class is easily 
within the reach of any Christian Endeavor society. 
Do not start with too ambitious plans, and do not wait 
for large numbers. Begin with few members and 
with tasks that are not difficult, and confidently count 
on experience to increase your capacity for study and 
enlarge your numbers. Even though no more than 
two of the society are willing to undertake this work, 
they can form a study class by themselves, and they 
will be likely to get quite as much good from it as 
they would if the class were larger ! 

The Best Plan for a missionary study class I have 
been able to devise is the following. It has been put 
in operation in many classes ail over the country, and 
all that have tried it have testified to its working qual- 
ities. The constitution is self-explanatory: — 

CONSTITUTION. 

Article I. — Name. 

This organization will be called the Christian Endeavor Mission 

Club of 

Note. — It will be pleasant for the club to choose a chapter name. 
The clubs usually name themselves after some famous missionary in 
whose work their church has an especial interest. A Baptist club, for 
instance, might call itself the Carey or Judson chapter; Methodists 
might organize Bishop Taylor chapters ; a Presbyterian church might 
have a Paton chapter ; a Congregationalist church, a Coan chapter, etc. 



64 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

Article II. — Purpose. 
The purpose of this club is to read missionary books, and to gain 
a general knowledge of the history cf missionary work of all de- 
nominations, and a full and definite knowledge of the missionary 
work of our own denomination in all the world. - 

Article III.— Work. 
The club will follow some definite course of missionary reading 
and study, to be laid down by its executive committee, in consulta- 
tion with the pastor. 

Article IV. — Organization. 
The membership of this club shall consist of all young persons 
interested in missions, who expect to attend most of the meetings, 
and to take part as their turn comes in all the work of the club. 

Note. — Many clubs may wish to drop the word " young " from the 
foregoing, and admit older persons as well. It is especially urged that 
no drones shall be admitted. It is not best to seek large numbers in 
order to get an audience. Two earnest workers make a better club 
than two hundred that come merely to hsten. Begin with few, if need be, 
but those that are genuine workers, that know the value of a knowledge 
of missions, and are willing to give time as well as energy to obtain it ; 
those, too, that are willing to take their turn in serving in each of the 
offices, and doing all kinds of club work. 

Article V. — Meetings. 

This club will meet every week on . . . . evening at . . . 

o'clock, at the house of one of its members. 

Note. — In some communities it maybe best to have one regular 
place of meeting. Ordinarily, the interests of good fellowship would 
be promoted by meeting from house to house. 

Article VI. — Officers. 

The officers of this society shall be a president, vice-president, 
secretary, and treasurer, elected for one year, and performing the 
usual duties assigned to such officers. These four constitute the 
executive committee. .... 

The club also has nine peculiar offices. To the latter offices the 
president will assign different persons each month. These officers 
are: one reader, two reporters, one statistician, one examiner, one 
geographer, one historian or biographer, one traveller, and one re^ 
viewer. 



MISSIONARY STUDY CLASSES. 65 

Note. — It will be especially necessary to get a president that knows 
the importance of keeping all the exercises to their time, beginning 
promptly, making things run by clock-work. 

The treasurer should be good at collecting the dues, when the books 
are purchased by systematic collections. 

The secretary should send to the members notices of all meetings. 

It will b^ the reader's business to read before the club the portion of 
the biography or missionary history assigned for the meeting. He 
should, of course, read this over beforenand. In the rare cases where 
it is too long for the time, he should condense it, reading the most in- 
teresting portions, and giving a synopsis of the remainder. 

The two reporters will present recent missionary news. One of them 
will d^al with the country under discussion, and the other with the rest 
of the world. Only afezu notes should be presented at each meeting. 

The statistician will give any missionary statistics connected with the 
country studied. He will g;t best results if he presents only one or two _ 
facts each week, emphasizing them, and illustrating them with diagrams. 

The geographer will speak of the size of the country, its population, 
languages, etc. The traveller will tell about the character and the 
habits of its people. Both the latter officers will do well to present 
only one or two facts at a time, — no more than can readily be carried 
in the memory. 

The historian wall give a brief history of the progress of missions in 
the country. 

If the history of missions is the basis of study, the historian becomes 
the reader, and in his place the club should have a biographer, who pre- 
sents at each meeting a condensed biography, giving the salient and 
interesting facts regarding some eminent missionary. Where the club 
is reading a biography, the biographer, of course, is the reader. 

The examiner will ask questions, at the end of each session, on the 
points brought out in each session. The reviewer will ask questions on 
the most important points brought out in the preceding session. The 
work of the examiner and reviewer is of especial importance. If ques- 
tions show that what has been heard and told is not fixed in the memory, 
better repeat it at another meeting than permit it to go in at one ear 
and out at the other. 

The president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer may, if the club 
is small, hold, also, any four of the nine special offices, and small clubs 
will find it necessary to give to several of the members more than one 
office. 

Article VII. — Programme. 
The order of exercises for a meeting of a Christian Endeavor 
Mission Club may be the following: — 

1. Singing of a missionary hymn. 

2. Business. 

3. Sentence prayers for the progress of missions. 

4. Bible quotations bearing on missions. 

5. Questions by the reviewer. 

6. Report of the geographer. 



66 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

7.. Reading of the missionary biography or history. 

8. Report of the traveller. 

9. Report of the historian or biographer. 

10. Report of the statistician. 

11. Report of the reporter on the country studied. 

12. Report of the general reporter. 

13. Questions of the examiner, and general conversation. 

14. Closing prayer. 

15. Closing song. 

Note. — This programme cannot successfully be carried out in less 
than one hour and a half. Five minutes will be enough for all officers 
except the reader, and one half-hour should be devoted to the reading. 
If the club cannot give an hour and a half to the meetings, then reports 
irovafotir of the special officers only should be heard at one meeting, 
and the remaining four should be heard at the next meeting, the reader, 
of course, working at each meeting. 

Article VIII. — Books. 

Note. — This article must be formulated by the individual clubs, 
according to the plans they adopt for obtaining the books. 

The treasurer should take charge of the purchase of books. He may 
buy them anywhere ; or, if more convenient, he can always obtain them 
from the United States Society of Christian Endeavor as cheaply as in 
any bookstore in the country. 

A great deal of the literature used by the clubs should, of course, be 
obtained from the denominational missionary boards. Each club 
should obtain from these boards a complete list of the books and 
pamphlets they have for the use of their churches. Many of these 
pamphlets may be obtained free. 

The club should subscribe to the missionary periodicals of its own 
denomination, and pass these about among the members. 

It is very important that the club have access, at each meeting, to a 
good set of maps, a gazetteer, an up-to-date dictionary , and an encyclor 
paedia. These are cumbrous books to carry around, and for this reason 
only it is better for the club to meet uniformly at one place. 

Each member should, of course, contribute to the general use of the 
club whatever books or magazines he may possess bearing on the sub- 
ject under discussion. 

This is a pretty thorough-going scheme, and it may 
be necessary to modify it, especially at the start. 
You may not wish to hold meetings oftener than once 
a fortnight. You may prefer to dispense with the ser- 
vices of the traveller, the historian, and their com. 
rades. In other ways you may wish to simplify the 



MISSIONARY STUDY CLASSES. 67 

plan. It is given here, with that understanding, in its 
most complete form. The points to be insisted on, 
however, are regularity in the meetings and system in 
the work. Definite accomplishment, although it may 
be slight, is quite certain to create a desire for more, 
while haphazard work is always unsatisfactory and 
dissatisfying. 

The Leader of the study class may well be a perma- 
nent official, if some experienced missionary student, 
with tact, energy, and attractiveness, can be found 
willing to undertake this delightful and important 
work. But if no permanent leader can be found, 
why, Christian Endeavorers are used to carrying on 
their work without much help. You can take turns 
in the leadership, and, thus divided, neither the labor 
nor the responsibility will be too burdensome. 

The Members of the study class should be— as will 
be understood — those that are not afraid of a little 
work, but are in earnest in this matter of missions. 
There will be no objection, however, to permitting the 
attendance of visitors who will come to listen and 
who may catch the contagion of zeal. 

The Plan of Study may follow the divisions of 
countries, and may take up one mission field after an- 
other, reading such books as "The Neglected Con- 
tinent " for Africa, " Chinese Characteristics " for 
China, "The Cross in the Land of the Trident" for 
India, " An American Missionary in Japan" for the 
Sunrise Empire, and so on. Or it may proceed along 
biographical lines, reading one great missionary life 
for each country, such as Carey's for India, Gardiner's 
for South America, Paton's for the South Seas, Liv- 



68 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

ingstone's for Africa, Gilmour's for China, Neesima's 
for Japan, Whitman's for America, Hamlin's for 
Turkey. Or the work may be a series of studies of 
the missionary societies, their fields and their accom- 
plishments. Or at times it may deal with current 
topics in relation to missions. General biographies 
are best to begin with, and then books about the 
countries as a whole. 

The Books for the study class should be purchased 
by contribution from all the members. If this plan 
of reading aloud is pursued, one book will last for 
several months. The members of the class may pre- 
fer to buy the books in turn, each to keep for his own 
the book he has bought. Or the books may be given 
to the society to serve as the nucleus of a missionary 
library, or to the Sunday-school library. Generally 
speaking, short books should be chosen, and models 
for this purpose are the missionary biographies and 
many othenmissionary books published by the Flem- 
ing H. Revell Company, and the publications issued 
by the Student Volunteer Movement for their study 
course. 

Essays should be required at every meeting, and 
they should bear upon the chapters of the book to 
be read at that meeting, being enlargements of some 
point made there, or discussions suggested by them. 
These essays — or, at any rate, some of them — should 
afterward be utilized in the regular society missionary 
meeting. Following the reading from the book, too, 
there should always be given opportunity for ques- 
tions and discussions aroused by what has been read. 

Current Events should be reported at each meeting 



MISSIONARY STUDY CLASSES. 69 

of the club. The best plan is to assign one member 
to a country and obtain reports from each in turn, 
this week from Burma, the next from South America, 
etc. Different persons should report for the home 
field in the same way, and at every meeting. A 
third report which might be given at each meeting is 
from one of the mission boards of your denomina- 
tion, these being divided among the members, that 
they may keep track of their condition and work. 
Prayers for missions should also come in each meet- 
ing, as well as the reciting of memory missionary verses 
from the Bible. The work of each meeting should 
begin with a review of last week's work, and end with 
an examination on the day's work. The review should 
be oral, and the examination may often be written, 
although it should be very brief. At the close of 
each book or course of study a thorough examination 
should be given, one entire meeting being occupied 
with the review and the closing examination. 



JO THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 



CHAPTER IX. 

MISSIONARY LETTERS. 

Helpful all Around. — Few bits of writing go 
through Uncle Sam's mail that do more good than 
letters to missionaries. They serve to make missions 
vivid to the writer as nothing else will. If written in 
a sincere, Christian spirit, they are of supreme value 
to the missionary, and hearten him for his work as 
perhaps nothing else can. A five-cent postage stamp 
affords us an easy and pleasant way of obeying to 
some extent the Master's command, " Go ye into all 
the world." It can carry a very real piece of our- 
selves to China, Madagascar, where we will. Let us 
have more consecrated postage-stamps. 

The Use of Missionary Letters. — For this purpose 
societies should band together more than they do, 
and pass around good missionary letters, that the 
work of the missionary may go as far as possible. 
The missionary committees of the same denomination 
in a city or in neighboring small towns should co- 
operate to this end.. I do not advise the manifolding 
of missionary letters. That, to me, takes all the per- 
sonality out of them. It is better to pass them 
around ; and be sure to send with them the foreign 
envelope, with the stamp and post-mark ! As these 
letters go to the various societies, how delightful it 
would be if in each society some member should be 
instructed to write to the missionary. 



MISSIONARY LETTERS. *j\ 

Be Thoughtful. — Missionaries are the busiest peo- 
ple in the world — more busy even than editors. 
There is no end to the things they may be doing, and 
they work under great pressure of responsibility and 
opportunity. Moreover, they are not chosen because 
of their ability to write, and though, of course, 
since they are persons of unusual intelligence, there 
is among them more than the average number of 
good and quick letter- writers, yet we must remember 
that to some of them, as to us, letter- writing may be a 
great task, and we must be careful how we require it 
of them. In entering into correspondence With a 
missionary, always express plainly your sense of these 
facts, and tell him that you will understand why no 
answer comes, if none does come, and be entirely sat- 
isfied. Moreover, assure him that any letter he may 
have time to send (and you may be sure that he will 
answer if he can) will be used fully for the arousing 
of new missionary zeal. 

Be Regular. — What is not done systematically is 
likely not to be done at all. Set before you a definite 
aim in this letter- writing. Is one missionary letter a 
month from each Endeavorer too much to hope for? 
The letter may take half an hour to write (long letters 
are not needed). Is that too much timer -to give each 
month to this blessed personal work for the Master ? 

A Letter Evening. — When your plans are in full 
operation, you will wish to have an occasional letter 
evening, in the course of which every member of the 
society will read extracts from the most interesting 
missionary letter he has received during the last six 
months. Of course this will not mean that you have 



J2 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

obtained. so many letters from the missionaries them- 
selves ; that would be too great a burden upon them. 
Let a large part of your correspondence be with the 
Christian Endeavorers. If you have not enough let- 
ters to fill out the entire evening, read what you have 
and intersperse items about each missionary station 
heard from. 

Not Always to Missionaries. — It will aid the mis- 
sionary work in many ways if, instead of always writ- 
ing to the missionary, you get into correspondence 
with the native Christians. Usually the missionaries 
will have to write their letters for them at their dicta- 
tion, but it will strengthen the faith of the natives, 
help the missionaries get in touch with them, and 
give you some of the most delightful letters you ever 
read, besides giving you an opportunity to testify of 
Christ to his new-found brethren over the seas. Es- 
pecially, write to the native Christian Endeavorers. 
What a stimulus it will be to their work, and to yours, 
to emphasize in this way the sense of our world-wide 
brotherhood ! Every country now has its hundreds 
of native societies, and each foreign land, of course, 
has its strange Endeavor customs. Learn these 
plans; they may well be worth transplanting. And 
in exchange, tell them what your own society is 
doing. 

Christian Endeavor under Difficulties. — There are 
places where Christian Endeavor especially needs 
the help of your ink-stands. One of them is in pris- 
ons, and the rapidly increasing number of prison 
Christian Endeavor societies should spur us to gener- 
ous letter-writing for the benefit of our brothers in 



MISSIONARY LETTERS. 73 

bonds. The gracious custom has sprung up of writ- 
ing them hearty personal letters at Christmas time 
and at Easter, and these letters do a world of good. 
Equally prized and equally helpful are letters to the 
Endeavorers on board ship, to the societies in asy- 
lums, and in other places where Christian Endeavor 
is maintained only with the exercise of a heroism 
many of us know little about. 

The Home Fields. — It may seem more interesting 
to receive a letter from Yokohama than from Spring- 
field, Mont, (if there is a Springfield in Montana) ; 
but if you are patriotic, you will not neglect the home 
field, and you will soon come to think quite as much 
of your home-mission letters as of the foreign. In- 
deed, as this correspondence can be conducted in the 
language familiar to both parties, it can be made 
much more interesting and valuable. 

A Letter Committee. — In view of all these possibil- 
ities, do you wonder that I advocate the formation of 
a letter committee in every society? The work of 
letter-writing should be under the direction of the 
missionary committee, but they need much assistance, 
and the society needs to give it. The letter commit- 
tee may be different each month, and should be 
chosen by the missionary committee, who will ap- 
point one of its own members as chairman. 



74 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 



CHAPTER X. 

MISSIONARY MUSEUMS. 

Their Advantage. — As will be seen from the preced- 
ing chapters, missionary meetings need for their best 
success a large amount of illustrative material, and 
since our membership is changing and the work ever 
the same, it will greatly promote the missionary cause 
if the material gathered by one set of workers can be 
handed down to the next. It is human nature, when 
one has made a good map or obtained some interest- 
ing object from foreign lands, to wish to keep it, if 
only as a pleasant souvenir ; but the spirit of the early 
disciples, who had all things in common, is the mission- 
ary spirit, and I am sure that missionary workers, as 
soon as the need is clearly shown them, will be glad 
to establish in a missionary museum a permanent 
fund of missionary helps. 

The Room in which these objects are preserved 
should be the same from year to year, if possible. It 
is best some room in the church building or in the 
parsonage next door, but the museum may be set up 
in any private house. 

Its Contents will comprise whatever may be of in- 
terest in the missionary meeting or suggestive to 
coming missionary committees. There will be curios, 
of course, from all lands, and especially foreign cos- 
tumes. It will be hardest to get the members to part 



MISSIONARY MUSEUMS. 75 

with these, but they will be most useful in carrying on 
the work. There will be articles of use or ornament 
from all around the world, idols, samples of food, 
commercial products. The flags of the various na- 
tions, for use in decorating, will be kept here, and will 
often be required. Missionary mottoes, diagrams 
that have been found effective, maps and charts of all 
kinds, will here be preserved. The essays that have 
been presented in missionary meetings will be placed 
on file here — or at least copies of them — together 
with the reports of all former missionary committees. 
Unless you wish to place the missionary library in the 
society meeting-room, here you will put your files of 
missionary magazines and your collection of mission- 
ary books and pamphlets. 

Arrange the Museum carefully, placing in one com- 
partment everything from one country. Provide a 
neat and complete catalogue of whatever you have. 
If duplicate copies of the catalogue can be prepared 
by a copying-machine, they will prove very useful. 

Interest People in the Museum, especially the mis- 
sionaries, and you will soon find treasures floating in 
upon you from all over the world. There is no 
reason, either, why you should not spend a little 
money upon it, since it is to be used to make money 
for the Lord, and a few dollars laid out in foreign cos- 
tumes not easily obtainable otherwise might prove a 
fine investment. 

Local Unions, of course, may do this work far better 
than individual societies, and wherever possible the 
missionary museum should be a union affair. It will 
then be placed in some central locality, and be given 



j6 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

in charge of a union officer. It may become a very 
large and important collection, and if care is exercised 
in appointing missionary meetings on different nights, 
or, if they are on the same night, in seeing that the 
subjects are different, there need never be confusion 
in the use of it, 



MISSIONARY SOCIALS. "J*J 



CHAPTER XI. 

MISSIONARY SOCIALS. 

All Things to All Men. — The shrewd missionary 
worker at home will imitate the wise men that are at 
work on the missionary fields : he will not wait for 
men to come to him to learn about missions, but he 
will go to them ; and he will not present his subject 
only in one stereotyped way, but in as many ways as 
he can think of. Especially, he will take advantage 
of the interest in play which all healthy young folks 
feel, and will carry on, now and then, a missionary 
social. The hard-worked social committee will be 
very glad to resign their post for the occasion, and 
allow the missionary committee to run a social as they 
please. The following brief accounts deal with types, 
and do not pretend to be exhaustive. For instance, 
the idea of a " Hindoo Social " may be applied to any 
missionary country, and so with most of the socials 
described. Thus these plans are susceptible of many 
applications. 

A Foreign Games Social. — By correspondence with 
missionaries, by conversation with travellers, or from 
books, get a collection of the games of missionary 
countries, and devote an evening to playing them, 
interspersing the games with short missionary ad- 
dresses. Here is a sample game from Japan: Place 
the Endeavorers in two long lines, facing each other. 



/8 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

The leaders step forward and say together, " One, two, 
three!" With the "three!" each thrusts forward 
simultaneously one hand, with the palm flat, or with 
the fist closed, or with only -two fingers extended. If 
both have the same gesture, it is a tie, and the per- 
formance must be repeated ; but if A has closed his 
fist, he has represented a stone ; and if B has his palm 
extended, he has represented paper, and is victorious, 
as paper can wrap up stone. If, on the other hand, 
B had extended his fingers, representing scissors, A 
would have been victor, because stone spoils scissors. 
Scissors cuts paper, and so is victorious over it. The 
conquered player steps out of the line, while No. 2 in 
each row tries his fortune. So it goes on down the 
lines ; then begins at the head again with those that 
are left, and continues until one side is wiped out. 

A Curio Social. — Interest all the members of the 
society and their friends in gathering every possible 
article from foreign lands, especially those in which 
your church has missionaries at work. Arrange these 
on tables, or in prettily hung booths, in each of which 
there may preside a young woman dressed in the cos- 
tume of the country, and ready to explain whatever is 
on her table. The Turkish room may have Turkish 
coffee to regale visitors ; the India room may treat 
them to curry ; the Chinese room, to tea or to lichee 
nuts, and so on. After all have passed around among 
the tables, call the assembly to order, and let some 
competent person give a lecture on the curios, telling 
about the strange customs they illustrate, and bring- 
ing in many a plea for missions by the way. Close 
With a missionary hymn. 



MISSIONARY SOCIALS. 79 

A Cook's Tour. — To carry on a Cook's tour, and yet 
not leave town, first choose the country in which you 
will journey,— say, China. Next gather every possi- 
ble article illustrating that country, and especially 
pictures of all sorts, photographs preferred. Hang 
these around the room, and place the objects — carv- 
ings, idols, potten', vases, dresses, and the like — on 
tables. Divide these things uniformly over the room, 
and place in each section of the room a tourist con- 
ductor, who will know all about the objects and pict- 
ures in his section. Let the Endeavorers wander around 
as they wish until all are there. Then divide them 
into as many groups as you have tourist conductors, 
send each group to one section of the room, where the 
conductor will explain everything; then, at the tap of 
a bell, let the groups pass to the sections next in order, 
and so on, until the entire series of exhibits has been 
visited. 

A Ceremony Social. — This form of entertainment is 
very amusing and instructive. It requires costumes 
and a pretty good knowledge of foreign customs, — 
but nowadays both can be obtained, if one has intelli- 
gence and knows how to use books. The ceremonies 
best suited to representation are a Turkish wedding, 
a Japanese ceremonial call, a Chinese tea, a Moham- 
medan salutation, worship before a Buddhist shrine, 
and the like. 

A Missionary Quiz. — The scope of the missionary 
quiz must be announced several weeks beforehand, 
that the members may study up. It is best conducted 
by the pastor, who will manage it in the same way as 
the old-fashioned spelling bee, — only, instead of re- 



80 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

quiring the victims to spell our absurd English words, 
he will ask them questions in missionary history and 
other missionary facts. If the sides are chosen three 
or four weeks in advance, the leaders may be trusted 
to see that the members of their respective sides are 
well posted before the evening arrives. Confine the 
questions to one country or one missionary board. 
It might be well to give a good missionary book to 
the victor, but this should be a surprise. 

Who Am I? — Each Endeavorer, as he enters, re- 
ceives, pinned upon his back, the name of a mission- 
ary. He is to find out what missionary he represents 
by conversing with those he meets. They will talk 
with him as if he were the missionary whose name he 
bears, but of course without calling the name. He 
will do the same for them. When one has guessed 
who he is, the slip of paper is transferred to the front 
of his coat. This game will not go well unless the 
names of the missionaries to be used have been posted 
in some conspicuous place for several weeks before- 
hand, so that the Endeavorer s may have a chance to 
study up. To vary the game, some may be given more 
general names to discover, such as a Hindoo widow, 
a Buddhist priest, the "Morning Star"; but this 
should be understood beforehand, or it will be con- 
fusing. 

Mission Cities. — Divide the company into two 
groups, and place them on opposite sides of the 
room, with an umpire between. Allow each group a 
few minutes in which they may consult and make out 
a list of as many cities in mission fields as they can, 
beginning with A. When the umpire calls " Time," 



MISSIONARY SOCIALS. 8; I 

he will point to one side, whose leader promptly calls 
out the name of a city. Turning to the other side, 
the umpire counts twenty. Before he has finished, 
the leader of the other side must name another city. 
Thus it proceeds, until the list of one side is exhausted, 
when the other side is credited with that letter ; and 
the two sides consult on the next letter. It will be in 
order for any member to whisper to the leader at any 
time the name of a city not on his list. If the umpire 
is in doubt whether the city is in a missionary coun- 
try, he may compel the side that names it to tell where 
the city is. The side gaining most letters is the victor. 

Missionary Clumps. — You are probably familiar 
with the game of clumps, in which the company is 
divided into two groups, which occupy different 
rooms, and send representatives — one from each 
clump — to consult together and fix on some object. 
The representative from each group goes before the 
other one, and is questioned until one group has found 
out what it is that has been fixed upon. A clapping 
of hands announces the victor to the* defeated side. 
It will be of interest to play this on missionary lines, 
setting the Endeavorers to guessing such objects as 
Carey's hammer, Morrison's printing-press, Mackay's 
engine, Livingstone's heart. 

Boston Translated. — The good old game of "Bos- 
ton" may be given a useful missionary twist. Some 
one well informed regarding missions will preside 
over the game, and begin the story. This leader will 
assign to each player some name connected with the 
history of missions — either the name of a place or 
the name of a missionary. When in the course of the 



82 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

story any of these names is introduced, the person 
bearing it must at once rise and whirl around, on pen. 
alty of paying a forfeit. When in the course of the 
story the leader comes to the word, " Calcutta ! " all 
the players change seats, and in the confusion the 
leader also gets a seat. The person left standing 
must go on with the story, and so it continues until 
a sufficient number of forfeits has accumulated, when 
they must be redeemed. 

A Turn-Turn Social. — Of course this social is not 
based exactly upon that Hindoo drum, but it is based 
upon the music of missionary lands. Make up the 
evening's entertainment, so far as possible, by the use 
of songs in the language of missionary countries. You 
will be able to get some natives to furnish it, per- 
haps, — some Armenians, Chinese, Japanese, Hindoos, 
Africans, or Indians. Solos on foreign instruments 
may be introduced. The songs of some of these 
countries may be obtained translated into English, 
but with the foreign music. Interspersed among 
these musical performances will come, of course^ 
short talks about the various missionary lands and 
the work there. 

Missionary Charades. — These are managed like the 
ordinary charades, except that famous missionary 
scenes are presented for the audience to guess — 
such scenes as Judson in his prison, or Gardiner and 
his comrades shipwrecked in Patagonia. 

The Missionary Post-Ofi6.ee. — The missionary com- 
mittee will prepare a large number of letters, one for 
every member of the society. These letters will be 
written in the character of some foreigner, and will 



MISSIONARY SOCIALS. 83 

introduce as many foreign ideas and customs as pos- 
sible. They will be also, in different ways, strong 
pleas for missionary work. Each envelope will bear 
the stamp of the country from which it is supposed to 
have come. Arrange part of the room in which the 
social is held as a post-office, and have each Endeav- 
orer call for his mail. After each has received his let- 
ter, he must read it aloud. Introduce bits of fun into 
each letter, to keep up the interest. 
. Missionary Representatives. — A pleasant feature of 
some social not otherwise devoted to missions, would 
be the requirement that each person come wearing 
something to indicate a mission land. The entire cos- 
tume or only part of it may suggest the country, and 
you may establish a contest, in the first part of the 
evening, to see which can make the most full and cor- 
rect list of the different countries represented. 

Hindoo Social. — The idea is to pack into one evening 
as much as possible about India. Hang the room with 
English flags and with Indian fabrics. Crowd it with 
all the articles from India you can get together. Have 
essays and talks on different phases of Hindoo life — ■ 
the schools, the women, the farmers, the temples, the 
caste system, widows, and the like. Show on the wall 
as many pictures as you can gather. Hang up a map 
of India ready for reference. Have Hindoo songs, 
Hindoo ceremonies, recitations of Hindoo pcems, 
quotations from the " Light of Asia," from some of 
Kipling's Hindoo ballads, summaries of the lives of 
the great missionaries to India. So much depends 
upon the resources of your -town that no specific direc- 
tions can be given ; but if you set to work and make 



84 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

a careful investigation, you will be astonished, I am 
sure, to see how much material you can bring together. 

Quotation Envelopes. — A good feature for a mis- 
sionary social is the bringing of envelopes in which 
each has placed some contribution for missions, while 
upon the outside is written a quotation from some 
missionary. After the contents of the envelopes has 
been counted and announced, the envelopes are dis- 
tributed and the quotations read aloud. 

Missionary Post. — This is for an outdoors social. 
Name the trees, bushes, etc., with the names of im- 
portant stations in different fields. Large banners 
should be provided beforehand, each bearing the name 
of a station and also of a missionary at work there. 
The players posted at the several stations represent 
the missionaries there. One player, unassigned, stands 
in the centre. By motions the players arrange for 
exchanges of posts, Dr. Farnham of Shanghai, for 
instance, going to become Dr. Barnum of Harpoot. 
With each transfer, the player takes up a new char- 
acter. While the change is being made, the leader 
tries to slip into the place temporarily vacant. If he 
succeeds, the outwitted player becomes leader in his 
turn. 

Missionary Alphabet. — Give each player a piece of 
paper and a pencil. The game is to make — in five 
minutes, say — as long a list as possible of missionary 
stations and missionaries whose names begin with A. 
After this, pass to the following letters. The person 
victorious in the most letters wins the game. 

Countries and Characters. — The leader stands in the 
centre of the circle with a knotted handkerchief which 



MISSIONARY SOCIALS. 0.5 

he throws at some player, at the same time saying, 
"A place in China," or, "A missionary in Turkey, 5 ' 
calling for either a missionary station or a missionary 
in some country. If the person hit cannot answer be- 
fore ten is counted slowly, he must take the leader's 
place in the centre. 

Hidden Stations. — Divide the members into groups, 
and give to each person a slip of paper bearing say 
ten anagrams, each anagram being the name of 
some prominent missionary station, the letters all 
mixed up. The anagrams are numbered, and each 
group is furnished with a set of items, correspond- 
ingly numbered, concerning the hidden stations, no 
proper names being admitted. These are to serve as 
an aid for solving the anagrams. The first group to 
solve all the puzzles correctly (a member of the mis- 
sionary committee with a correct list is stationed at 
each table) will announce this fact by clapping the 
hands, when the right list will be read aloud. 

A Hunt for Facts. — Write upon slips of paper a 
number of missionary facts, making them as varied 
and suggestive as possible. Divide these slips, each 
of them, into two parts. As the members enter, give 
each of them one half of a fact, and tell them that on 
the stroke of a bell they are to hunt for the rest of 
their facts. It will add to the interest if half of each 
fact is given to a boy and half to a girl, so far as pos- 
sible. After all have been matched, they should be 
read aloud. 

An Examination. — If you have a very jovial person 
to conduct the examination, you can get a great deal 
of fun as well as profit out of such an exercise, held at 



86- THE .MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

the close of a missionary social at which essays have, 
been read. The examination will be upon the in- 
formation presented in these papers and during the 
evening. The questions should be few, and should 
call for only short answers. Pass the papers to your 
neighbors, correct them, and mark the per cent as the 
right answers are read. Honor in some way the per- 
son whose per cent is the highest. 

A Missionary Hunt. — Tell the Endeavorers, before 
they come, to make themselves familiar with the 
various mission fields of their denomination and the 
names of the principal missionaries at each. As each 
Endeavorer comes in, give him a card bearing either 
the name of a missionary or the name of a station at 
which that missionary labors. On a given signal the 
stations set out to hunt for their missionaries, and the 
missionaries for their stations. Each pair must pre-, 
sent themselves before the missionary committee to 
learn whether they are properly matched. If you 
want to make this social simpler, place in the room 
a -home-made map on which you have marked the 
stations and the missionaries used during the evening. 
The Endeavorers can examine this, and learn for what 
name each is to search. 

Sewing Bees. — If your church has no young 
women's missionary society, it probably has no 
sewing bees for missionary work with the needle ; 
and what agency better to establish these delightful 
affairs than the missionary committee of the Christian 
Endeavor society? While the young women are sew. 
ing on missionary garments, let one of their number 
read aloud from some interesting missionary book. 



MISSIONARY SOCIALS. 8/ 

An International Tea. — This may be made as elab- 
orate as desired, with tables bearing viands of differ- 
ent countries, waiters dressed in national costumes, 
decorations of appropriate flags, the singing of na- 
tional songs, and other fitting exercises. Put at each 
plate a card bearing information about the missions 
of the country represented by that table. 

Missionary TTuggets. — This will furnish a pleasant 
half hour at any social. Distribute cards, upon which 
have been written famous bits from the writings of 
eminent missionaries. Upon the back of each is to 
be given a suggestive fact or two about the mission- 
ary, but no name. Each member in turn will read 
the quotation, and the information on the back of the 
card. Then the card is to be given to the person who 
first names the author. The Endeavorer that gets 
the most cards is the winner. 

An Animated Missionary Library. — Each young 
Woman is to represent a missionary book. She will 
post herself upon the contents of the book, and at the 
social will answer only questions with reference to it 
The books will be given numbers, and the 3 r oung men 
will "draw them 1 ' by number, without knowing who 
or what they are. Then the conversation is to begin, 
and is to continue until the young man has discovered 
with what book he is talking. Then he may draw 
another ! 

Picturesque Devices. — Be sure to select some bright 
feature in the life of each country presented in your 
socials, and hang upon it some missionary informa- 
tion. For example, if you are planning a Japanese 
social, you may buy a lot of littie Japanese umbrellas 



55 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

(one cent each) and attach to each a set of facts about 
Japan — different facts for each umbrella. At a cer- 
tain stage in the evening's proceedings, some one 
will read a set of questions to which these facts are 
answers, and as each question is read, whoever thinks 
he has the appropriate fact to answer it, will respond. 

If your social is upon Alaska, set up in one corner 
of the room an Indian tepee, within which will sit a 
squaw, who hands to every one that calls on her a slip 
of paper bearing either a question or an answer upon 
Alaskan missions. The recipients are expected to 
hunt around and find the corresponding slip. 

If you are dealing with China, construct a gay pa- 
goda in one corner of the room, and hang upon it little 
pieces of red paper, each of them containing a mis- 
sionary fact relating to China. These slips are of 
different lengths, and when all that have slips of the 
same length have come together, the assembly will be 
found to be divided into groups of fours. The infor- 
mation gathered by each four will be discovered to be 
on some one subject, such as Chinese education, Chi- 
nese religion, the Chinese language. It will next be 
in order for each group to read the slips of paper in 
their possession. 



MISSIONARY MONEY. 89 



CHAPTER XII. 
MISSIONARY MONEY. 

The Aim. — It is not right to have much regard in 
our Christian Endeavor work to the total amount 
raised for missions. Most of our members are young, 
people not yet earning money, and have little of it to 
give. The educational value of giving is what you 
must consider chiefly. It is essential, therefore, that 
every one give something, and that all gifts be made 
regularly. What you want is to cultivate the habit of 
giving. If the Christian Endeavor society does this, 
it is doing all that can fairly be expected of it. 

The Envelope System. — This is the ideal way of 
raising money for missions ; in fact, there is no other 
way worth consideration. At the beginning of the 
fiscal year the treasurer hands to each member of the 
society a printed card (it may be typewritten or hecto- 
graphed, though you can obtain the cards already 
printed from the United Society). This card contains 
the statement that the Endeavorer will give during 
the coming year so much a month. There is a list of 
figures, from one cent to twenty-five or fifty cents, and 
the Endeavorer checks off the amount he thinks he 
can give each month. The treasurer then hands him 
a set of twelve little envelopes, each bearing the name 
of a month. He is given a number on the treasurer's 
book, and the envelopes are numbered to correspond. 



~gO THE -MISSIONARY- MANUAL. 

There is nothing binding about the plan, but one may 
withdraw from it during the year, if he choose. I have 
yet to hear of a society that adopted this method, pre- 
senting the plan to each member personally, and ever 
afterward failed of a well filled treasury. It puts our 
gifts on a businesslike basis. Each knows what is 
expected, and the society knows what it will receive, 
and can plan accordingly. 

Ice-Cream Zeal. — If in your church you are already 
well trained in the art of giving, it will not be so dan- 
gerous for you occasionally to raise missionary money 
by means of entertainments, suppers, fairs, and the 
like ; but if your community has been in the habit of 
relying on such sources for most of its missionary 
gifts, the sooner and the more completely you break 
away from them, the better. " Pay socials do not 
pay." " Birthday parties " (a penny for every year of 
your age) are the death of true missionary giving. 
When we give ten cents for a plate of ice-cream in 
order that one cent of the dime may get to the heathen, 
our interest goes rather with the ice-cream than with 
the pitiful penny. That is not genuine giving which 
must go around by way of a strawberry patch. 

When Shall We Receive the Missionary Gifts ? — At 
the monthly consecration meeting, of course. Then 
you are most sure of a full attendance. Besides, what 
you give to missions is proof of consecration, to that 
extent, at least, and fits into the very spirit of the ser- 
vice. Always follow the reception of the collection 
with a prayer that God may bless the gift, and that 
souls may be won through it. 

How To Divide the Money Raised. — In some churches 



- MISSIONARY MONEY. 9I 

less amply provided with this world's goods, the 'aid 
of the Endeavorers in maintaining the church may be 
very acceptable ; but in most churches the young peo- 
ple will be free to use all their money for missions and 
to keep up their society work. In most societies the 
latter item is a very slight drain on the budget ; the 
society expenses consist almost entirely of topic-cards, 
with a little now and then to eke out a social. Most 
of the Endeavorers' money, then, can be appropriated 
to missions, and it is best to divide it equally between 
the home and the foreign fields. Of course, if the 
society wishes, separate pledges can be made for mis- 
sions and for the society expenses ; but that seems a 
needless complication, if it is understood that most 
will go to the mission boards. 

The Forward Look. — It is a decided advantage if 
the chief objects of your benevolence for the year can 
be selected' beforehand, though of course you will 
wish to leave part of the probable receipts unappro- 
priated to meet unexpected calls. But if you know 
what you are raising money for, it will be possible to 
arouse much more interest in the cause. Throughout 
the year you can not only speak of the good your past 
contributions are doing in certain fields, but you can 
urge the need of the fields to which you are intending 
to send money as soon as it may be raised. 

A Programme of Giving. — An individual forward 
look at the beginning of the year, as well as one taken 
by the society as a whole, will be a good thing for 
missionary giving. Hand to each member a hecto- 
graphed or typewritten copy of the following: — 

It is my purpose to give each week during the coming year ' 
to each of the following objects the sum set opposite them: — 



92 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

The church. 

Missions. 

The Sunday school. 

The Christian Endeavor society. 

The Christian Endeavor union. 

Temperance work. 

Religious periodicals and books. 

Flowers for the church. 

Of course the list will vary in different localities. 
Let the missionary committee place upon the board a 
copy of the list with sample figures added by way of 
suggestion, ranging from ten cents at the head to, 
possibly, one-fourth of a cent in the less important 
cases. 

Separate Funds. — The older Christians find it a help 
to divide their missionary gifts, taking ■ up separate 
collections for foreign work, home work, church-build- 
ing, Sunday-school extension, and the like. It may 
well be that, as a mere matter of education, if for no 
other reason, it would be well in our Christian En- 
deavor societies to give an opportunity at least to each 
member to subscribe separately to the different mis- 
sionary objects to which his society will contribute 
during the year. 

How Should Money Be Sent to the Missionary 
Boards? — Send it always through your church treas- 
urer, because the Christian Endeavor society is a 
branch of the church, and whatever it gives should 
be counted in with the church gifts. However, the 
treasurer should be asked to keep a separate account 
of the Christian Endeavor gifts, and to designate 
them separately in sending them to the boards. This 
is because many boards wish to keep track of the 



j ..MISSIONARY MONEY. 93 

amount of money sent by the Endeavor societies. If 
your money is to go to certain missions or missionaries 
set apart by the boards for the support of the young 
people, the treasurer will, of course, make that dispo- 
sition of your gifts. 

Follow Your Gifts. — You will have lost much of the 
value of giving, if after you have given you permit the 
society to lose sight of its gifts. Every dollar should 
mean just so much more of continued interest in some 
missionary field. For instance, you have sent fifteen 
dollars to a school in India: let the missionary com- 
mittee see to it that subsequent missionary meetings 
present news from that special school, though they 
present nothing else. Read before the society what- 
ever letter of acknowledgment comes to you. Get a 
letter from some missionary there, if you can. Show 
pictures of the building and the natives. Make the 
Endeavorers feel that they have actually made an in- 
vestment out in India which they should follow with 
their interest and their prayers. So important is this 
work that it might well be placed in the hands of a 
special committee, — a committee of one, possibly, — 
which might be called the " following-up committee." 

The Gifts of Church-Members. — Most of our En- 
deavorers are church-members, and their contributions 
to missions are made chiefly, as is right, to the church 
directly. It is only fair, however, that in reporting for 
Christian Endeavor statistics the gifts of Endeavorers, 
these sums should be included, and the treasurer 
should get from the church-members in the society a 
statement of what they gave through the church, as 
well as what they gave through the society. Of course 



94 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

this information should be kept private so far as names 
are concerned. 

Your Own Missionary. — Most missionary boards 
have adopted the plan of assigning missionaries to 
single Christian Endeavor societies or churches, or 
groups of societies or churches, for them to support 
entirely. I earnestly advocate this scheme. Experi- 
ence shows that when a society is thus embarked on 
some grand definite enterprise, its interest is not cen- 
tred on the one field in which its representative is at 
work, but at once becomes deeper and broader than 
ever before. Do something heroic, Endeavorers ! 
Get your board to assign to you a missionary of your 
very own. If you go at the task in the spirit of 
the pledge, you will be amazed to see how easily the 
money will be raised, and how blessed will be the 
spiritual results. 

A Division That Increases. — In case you are not 
giving all your money to the support of one mission- 
ary, it is better to divide it among several foreign and 
several home mission fields, than to send it all to one. 
Each gift, though it may be a small one, will interest 
the society in the field to which it goes, so that a di- 
versity of gifts generally means a widening interest. 

A Finance Committee. — The great subject of giving 
may w r ell absorb the energies of an entire committee, 
as well as of the treasurer. Most societies have too 
few committees, anyway. This committee, if you de- 
cide to form one, should not in any way interfere with 
the treasurer, but should confine its efforts solely to 
making the Endeavorers more generous. It will push 
the Tenth Legion, inform itself regarding the special 



MISSIONARY MONEY. 95 

needs of the boards and of the mission fields and re- 
port them, give items to the point in missionary meet- 
ings, and report from time to time what progress the 
society is making in the matter of giving. 

Just How You Stand. — Frequent reports from the 
treasurer will serve to maintain the society's interest 
in giving. At every business meeting he should tell 
precisely how the money is coming in, what has been 
spent, and for what missionary objects, and how much 
is left in the treasury. 

A Record that Takes Care of Itself. — The treasurer 
will be saved some bother if he places a mission box 
in one corner of the room, and above it a list of the 
members of the society, each name being followed by 
fifty-two spaces, if the contributions are to be made 
weekly, or by twelve spaces if they are to be made 
monthly. Then, as the member places his gift in the 
box, he will place a cross opposite his name. The 
treasurer alone knows for what pledged amount each 
cross stands. He will take out the money every week 
at the end of the meeting, and count it. 

The Tenth Legion. — Few branches of Christian 
Endeavor work have shown more clearly the practi- 
cal common sense of the movement, together with its 
lofty ideals, than the Tenth Legion. This is an en- 
rolment of tithe-givers, Christian Endeavorers and 
others. Its members simply state that it is their 
practice to give to the Lord's work one-tenth or more 
of their income. They receive a certificate, which is 
returned if, for any reason, at any time, they wish to 
.give up this plan of giving. But only two or three of 
the many thousands that have enrolled have discarded 



<)6 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

the method. Indeed, a large number of them have 
gone on to give one-fifth or more ! 

There is nothing formal about the matter. It is 
anything but a return to Judaism. The movement 
simply springs from the knowledge that Christians in 
general are giving far less than one-tenth, and from 
the conviction that " gospel liberty " does not mean 
liberty to be less generous than the Jews. 

To push this movement, send to the United Society 
of Christian Endeavor, and they will send you, free, a 
leaflet giving full details of the movement, with blank 
application-cards. They sell for two cents an address 
by myself which is to be illustrated by easily made 
paste-board designs, setting forth how little is now 
given and how much is needed. It is called, "The 
Tenth Legion." This may be repeated at a meeting 
called to arouse interest in tithe-giving. The United 
Society also sells — at fifteen cents a hundred — vot- 
ing slips to be used to ascertain what part of your so- 
ciety are already tithe-givers, what part would like to 
be, what part keep regular account of their gifts, etc. 
The address referred to, another address by your pas- 
tor, short testimonies from those that have already 
tried the system of tithe-giving, and the voting (no 
names being given) — this would make an effective 
presentation of the case, and would constitute one of 
the most useful of missionary meetings. Try it. 

A Standing Hint. — We do not use half enough in 
our religious work the principle of advertising. Try 
it in the matter of giving. Keep standing before the 
society, printed on a blackboard or on a sheet of card- 
board, this pointed announcement:-— 



MISSIONARY MONEY. 9/ 

Eight of our members 
are now giving 

the tenth. 

SHOULD NOT YOU? 

Of course the first figure should be changed as the 
number grows. 

" My Account with the Lord." — Get some printer to 
print this title upon a set of little blank books, and 
give one of them to every Endeavorer, obtaining a 
promise to keep account in that book on one side of 
all receipts, and on the other side of whatever gifts 
are made to the Lord's work. Even if the system of 
tithing is not in every case at once adopted, yet the 
gain in generosity that will result from this regular 
keeping of accounts will pay for the books many times 
over. 

Two Cents a Week. — The plan does not compare in 
value with the tithing system already mentioned, but 
some societies may wish to adopt, as a stepping-stone 
to a more just proportion, the " two-cents-a-week plan." 
In accordance with this, each member promises to 
give at least two cents a week for missions, paying 
the money every month to the treasurer, who keeps 
individual accounts. This may be increased to two 
cents a week for home and two cents for foreign mis- 
sions, and then you may advance to the more liberal 
plan of the tenth. 

A Growing Wave. — Some societies have found it 
profitable, in_ managing the " two-cents-a-week " plan 
of giving to missions, to ask each person that promised 
two cents a week to make a further promise that he 



98 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

will endeavor to get two other persons to give in the 
same way. Such a scheme might work, also, in the 
propaganda of the Tenth Legion. 

A Day's Wages. — If you find it hard to persuade 
the young folks to give a tithe, approach those that 
are earning salaries with the request that each of 
them set apart at least one day's wages for the mis- 
sion cause. This will doubtless be more than the 
average gift to missions, and will mark a step in 
advance. 

Free-Will Offering. — These are commanded, in addi- 
tion to the regular gifts that we pledge. Give an 
opportunity for them by establishing a thank-offering 
box in some part of the society room, whose contents 
the treasurer will investigate every week, and report 
frequently to the society for the sake of stimulating 
such extra gifts. 

A Birthday League. — This is a "wheel within a 
wheel." It is made up of those Endeavorers that 
agree to give each year on their birthdays a certain 
sum to the missionary treasuries. The sum is sup- 
posed to grow larger as they grow older. Christians 
outside the society are added to the league, and in one 
instance known to the writer very large sums indeed 
have been obtained in this way. 

A Sacrifice Social. — Let the members agree to see 
for a certain time — say a month — how much money 
each can save by little acts of self-denial. At the 
" sacrifice social " let each tell — in prose or verse — 
how much he saved, and what he did without in order 
to make the saving. Some societies have emphasized 
this plan by giving to each member a " self-denial 



MISSIONARY MONEY. 99 

box" or a self-denial envelope," to keep in plain view 
as a reminder. 

An Object Lesson. — A meeting with this title may be 
made to teach a great deal about giving. Give each 
Endeavorer some figures and ask him to illustrate 
them in some way before the society at the next meet- 
ing. Help those that are not inventive. For exam- 
ple, what the nation pays each year for confectionery 
may be illustrated by an immense stick colored to 
represent a stick of candy, and our gifts to foreign 
missions by a pasteboard Bible made correspondingly 
small. The relative gifts of the different denomina- 
tions may be represented by pieces of ribbon of differ- 
ent lengths. Diagrams may be drawn representing 
the average number of heathen to one missionary, 
and the average number of church-members to one 
minister at home. 

Printers 7 Ink. — Invest in some good book on giving, 
such as Pansy's capital "Pocket Measure," or get 
from " Layman," 310 Ashland Ave., Chicago, a supply 
of his admirable •" What We Owe, and Why We 
Owe It," which he will send you free. Then see 
that every one in the society reads these noble ser- 
mons on generosity. 

Bible Spurs. — A meeting with this title may be 
based on Bible texts on giving. Hand one of these to 
each member, and ask him to read it at the meeting 
and follow it up with remarks of his own. Songs 
about giving, prayers for the spirit of self-denial, and 
an address on generosity will round out the meeting. 

One Board a Meeting. — Until the members of the 
society are thoroughly informed regarding their mis- 



IOO THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

sionary boards, it will be well for the missionary 
committee to obtain ten minutes at each meeting (five, 
if no more can be got) for the presentation of inter- 
esting items concerning the work of some one board. 
Begin with an account of the work in general, and 
then, after this survey has been made, go on to give 
more details. 

Shares in Missionaries. — It will give a delightful 
sense of participation in missionary work if the mem- 
bers are invited to take shares in live missionaries or 
native workers. Find what it costs to support some 
particular missionary, divide it by one hundred or 
one thousand, and ask each Endeavorer how many 
shares he will take in the work of that missionary. 
If you can undertake the support of a missionary 
alone, — and many societies could do even this and 
some are doing it, — get your board to assign one to 
you, and then divide his salary into 365 parts, asking 
each member for how many days he will have the 
work of that missionary all to himself ! 



RELIEF WORK. IOI 



CHAPTER XIII. 
RELIEF WORK. 



Why Undertake It? — There is always danger in 
theory without practice, and one of the chief advan- 
tages of the Christian Endeavor Society is that it 
always combines the two. We must manage to get 
personal missionary work into our missionary activi- 
ties, or the missionary studies and even the missionary 
giving will fail of their highest service. It is for this 
reason that work in the prisons and in the hospital is 
so valuable, and it is for this reason that I urge young 
people, even though the means at their disposal may 
be slight, to take a hand in the relief work that all 
Christian churches should be carrying on. There are 
other reasons, also, why this relief work is fitted to 
our societies. Young people can learn the needs of 
the poor more readily than their elders without seem- 
ing obtrusive, and gifts will be received from them by 
the proud far more readily than from grown men and 
women. 

Go With Your Gift. — Of course much of its value, 
to you and to the recipient, depends upon this. The 
missionary committee should not do all the work 
of distributing alone. Each special case of want 
should be placed in the hands of some one member 
who will become acquainted thoroughly with the per- 
son or family, so that whatever is given will come 
from a personal friend rather than from a stranger. 



102 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

Learn Who Are in Need from your own observation, 
in the first place. Use your eyes in your own neigh- 
borhood, or, if you are in the city, take districts and 
explore them. If charitable organizations exist al- 
ready, put yourselves under their guidance. Get from 
the doctors and from your pastor the names of the 
very poor and their addresses. You will not need to 
search long. 

What To Give. — Clothes to the children, especially. 
Urge your desire that they may be able to come to 
Sunday school, and you will more easily prevail upon 
the parents to accept your aid. Gather cast-off cloth- 
ing from the entire congregation. Do not forget toys. 
Many a nursery would be a more joyful place if part of 
its toys went to the children that never have such things. 
Give food, or money to buy it. Give coal where the 
fuel supply, that prime source of comfort, has run 
short. Give a doctor's care to the sick, or money to 
buy medicine. Indeed, the needs will be so numerous 
that you will not find it necessary to inquire what to 
give, but rather how to get the many articles urgently 
called for. 

The Best Help Is Self -Help. — Whenever possible, 
give them work to do. It may be household sewing 
or family washing, or the garden to tend, or the lawn, 
or the front walk. It maybe a situation in a store. 
The very best relief committee is an employment 
bureau. 

Money for This Work must come largely from your 
elders, but lack of giving usually means only lack of 
knowledge, and if you will learn about such sad cases 
as are to be found everywhere, you will not need to 



RELIEF WORK. IO3 

do more than state them to open pocketbooks as wide 
as you please. 

The Country Week or the day's outing is a matter 
for the unions, but if you have no local union, there is 
no reason why a single society may not do splendid 
work, although limited, in this very direction. Cer- 
tainly those of you that have carriages can make 
missionary carriages of them, and see that they are 
often used to give rides to the children, the sick, and 
the weary, of the very poor. 

A Rummage Sale has been found by some societies 
to be a good plan. It may be held in the church, or, 
if that is not in the neighborhood where many poor 
people live, it may be brought closer to them. It will 
consist of all the partly worn articles you can gather 
from the homes of the congregation, neatly set forth 
and classified on tables, and offered for sale at nomi- 
nal rates. There will be a one-cent table, a two-cent 
table, and so on. The greatest care must be exercised 
to avoid giving the affair a patronizing tone, but that 
is true of all relief work. It is easily spoiled, but the 
spirit of Christ can fill it with all loveliness. 



104 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
MISSIONS IN THE JUNIOR SOCIETY. 

A Very Full Treatment of this subject is given in my 
Junior Manual, and I must refer my readers to that 
book if they wish a large number of working- methods. 
I can give in this place only a few general suggestions 
and a few specimen ways of working, especially some 
plans that are not described in the volume referred to. 
Indeed, most of the different kinds of meetings of 
which I give an account in the present manual may 
be made suitable, with little change, for the Junior 
society. 

Children's Mission Bands are not found in some 
churches, but all the work of such bands is carried on, 
to save multiplying organizations, by the Junior so- 
ciety. When this is the case, the Junior superinten- 
dent must use double care that the missionary cause 
may not suffer but may rather be the gainer because 
this trust is committed to Christian Endeavor hands. 
Get into close touch with the denominational organi- 
zation that conducts the mission bands; it is usually 
the woman's board. Learn the plans of the secre- 
taries, use their leaflets and exercises, and let them 
know that your Junior society is co-operating with 
them as thoroughly as the best mission band in the 
country. 

A Flag Exercise may readily be constructed, if you 
have a supply of foreign flags. Give each Junior 



MISSIONS IN THE JUNIOR SOCIETY. IO5 

some missionary fact or anecdote and have him step 
forward and tell it, at the same time waving the flag 
of the country about which he is speaking. 

A Question Meeting may be made so simple that all 
the Juniors can take part. Ask each Junior a question 
about missions so very easy that he can get the answer 
almost anywhere; such questions as: "What are the 
mission boards of our church ? v " Who was the first 
English missionary to India?" "What mission field 
is called the Dark Continent, and why?" "What 
mission field is called the Neglected Continent, and 
why?" 

The Chairs may be made an interesting and ever- 
varying factor in a Junior missionary meeting. Place 
them in squares for cities, each city bearing a banner 
with its name upon it. Of course the Juniors that sit 
in these chairs are the people living in those cities, 
and will describe their surroundings. So the chairs 
may be made to represent islands, and a Junior may 
represent a missionary ship cruising among them. So 
in many other ways the children's vivid imaginations 
may be enlisted in the cause. 

A Paton Sunday. — This will be a meeting entirely 
devoted to learning about the interesting life of this 
missionary, and it may be followed by other bio- 
graphical meetings. In the same way you may have 
a Foochow Sunday, studying that interesting city and 
its missions, followed by a Calcutta Sunday, and the 
like. 

Missionary Essays, brief and simple, may be given 
at every meeting. They will use up only a few 
minutes. On one Sunday an Endeavorer from the 



106 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

older society may give one and on the next Sunday a 
Junior, and so they may alternate. 

Missionary Cardboard. — Cut outsets of cards, two 
by four inches, using a different color for each mis- 
sionary country. Upon these cards write interesting 
missionary facts and anecdotes, or cut from the 
papers and paste them on, not by any means forget- 
ting pictures. These cards may be used in mission- 
ary meetings, and should be kept as souvenirs by the 
Juniors participating. 

"The Junior Missionary." — This would make a 
good name for a little manuscript missionary paper, 
to be edited by one of the Juniors, and read at every 
missionary meeting. Of course contributions are to 
be obtained from as many of the Juniors as possible. 

Mission Maps made in the sand may teach the Jun- 
iors much about the mission fields. Dampen the 
sand beforehand, and use blue cambric on the bottom 
of the tray to represent the water. Dress dolls in for- 
eign costumes for the people. Have the boys make 
paper models of foreign houses, of temples, pagodas, 
and the like. Get each Junior to make something for 
the map — a mission school house, a mission church, 
a mission college ; and as each places his contribution 
in the proper position, he is to tell the society some- 
thing about it. 

The Birthdays of Missionaries may be observed by 
the Juniors, and if they send to the missionaries, in 
time to reach them on their birthdays, some little 
token of their love for them, it will cheer the mission- 
aries beyond measure, and at the same time quicken 
the Juniors' interest in the work. 



MISSIONS IN THE JUNIOR SOCIETY. IO7 

Souvenirs of Missionary Meetings will please the 
Juniors. They may be very simple, but they should 
be appropriate and should be given to each member 
present. For example, a good souvenir of a meeting 
devoted to studying missions among the Indians would 
be an arrow cut from pasteboard, gilded, with a blue 
ribbon tied to the shaft, and with the date printed on 
the back. 

Foreign Christian Endeavor Badges may be obtained 
from the United Society, and may be used in various 
ways, as rewards and otherwise, to stimulate interest 
in missions. The Juniors will be proud to wear 
Chinese pins, and the little silver tokens will often re- 
mind them of their almond-eyed brothers and sisters. 

Missionary Links. — These are obtained by corre- 
spondence with the Juniors of other lands. They con- 
sist of brief messages, especially Bible verses, writ 
ten on uniform strips of paper sent for that purpose, 
though a fine effect is sometimes produced by the 
substitution of foreign paper. The messages should 
be written in the foreign languages, with translations 
following. They will be fastened together in a chain, 
and will hang in the Junior meeting-place as a perpet- 
ual reminder of missions and of the Juniors' kinship 
all around the world. 

Text-Chains may be made for the sick in the hospi- 
tals or in the homes of the congregaticn. Each 
Junior chooses a Bible verse that he thinks likely to 
comfort and help the sick one. The text is then writ- 
ten, as nicely as he can do it, on a strip of bright- 
colored paper furnished by the superintendent, and 
when all are done, they are pasted together in inter- 



108 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

lacing links and sent to cheer the hospitals and the 
sick rooms. The children themselves may do much 
good by visiting the hospitals, old ladies' homes, and 
the like, singing to the inmates, and bringing them 
fruit and other delicacies, as well as light scrap- 
books they have made themselves and fans covered 
with funny stories or pretty pictures. 

Talents. — Give to each Junior a small sum of 
money, say five cents, to increase for the missionary 
contribution. The children will buy with it material 
which they can make up into objects for sale, which 
can again be converted into new material, thus con- 
stantly adding to the fund. A social should be held, 
or some special meeting, to which the Juniors will 
bring their money and tell how they gained it. 

Mite-Boxes will be of assistance in teaching the Jun- 
iors to save money for missions. They can be obtained 
at most missionary headquarters. Once a year, or 
oftener, hold " inspection " socials, in which the mite- 
boxes are opened and their contents counted. 

Junior Gardens. — Set the Juniors to raising money 
for missions by means of gardening. Give each of 
them at the beginning of the season, in a bag, a cer- 
tain number of beans to plant, say one hundred and 
fifty, and at the close of the season have a " bean sup- 
per," all the articles of refreshment beginning with B. 
The beans from each garden are to be weighed and 
bought at their market value by some missionary 
grocer. 

Missionary Canvassers. — The Juniors will make good 
canvassing agents for the papers published by your 
denomination, and since in most cases a liberal pre- 






MISSIONS IN THE JUNIOR SOCIETY. IO9 

raium is allowed, this is one excellent way to raise 
money for missions. Another good way is to present 
each Junior with a prettily made Junior shield, — 
pasteboard, of course, — bearing upon its back ten 
little envelopes in two rows. Each envelope is to 
receive ten cents for missions, so that the whole when 
filled will mean one dollar. 

A Parasol Social. — Provide little Japanese parasols, 
which cost about one cent apiece. Give one to each 
Junior. Attached to each parasol is a card bearing a 
missionary fact. Corresponding to these facts is a set 
of questions which will be read later in the evening, 
each Junior watching to see when a question is read 
that may belong to the answer on his parasol. For 
instance, if the question is read : " What do the Japa- 
nese street Arabs say to the foreigners ? " The an- 
swer would be, "His talk is all the same as a cat's." 
" How many Chinese can read ? " " How many 
missionaries are there in the world?" — that is the 
kind of question to propound. 

Missionary Anagrams. — This is a pleasant mission- 
ary game for a social. Group the Juniors in compa- 
nies of ten, and give each Junior a slip of paper with 
numbers from 1 to 10. Pass around in each group 
a set of ten cards, each card bearing the name of a 
missionary well known to the Juniors, but the letters 
all mixed up. They are to solve the puzzles, writing 
the names of the missionaries opposite the proper 
figure, each card bearing a number. Those that 
solve the greatest number in a certain time win the 
game. 



IIO THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 



CHAPTER XV. 
UNION MISSIONARY WORK. 

Other Chapters of this book have described fully 
some of the most important missionary enterprises of 
Christian Endeavor unions, namely, the missionary 
conference, the missionary mass meeting, the mission- 
ary museum, and missions in conventions. This 
chapter is to speak of other lines of work that do not 
need detailed treatment. 

The Union Missionary Committee consists of the 
chairmen of all the missionary committees in the 
union. This committee itself has a chairman chosen 
by the union. The committee should meet several 
times a year to plan the committee conferences, and 
to arrange for whatever practical missionary work the 
union may carry on. 

An Advisory Board. — Many lines of effort, noble in 
themselves, are not appropriate for an interdenomina- 
tional body such as the Christian Endeavor union. 
Still other kinds of work, though suitable, require for 
success the advice and guidance of older heads. 
Every Christian Endeavor union should have, there- 
fore, a pastors' advisory board, consisting of repre- 
sentative pastors of the different denominations, and 
new undertakings of importance should first receive 
the hearty approval of this board. Some of the plans 
suggested in the following pages would be very unwise 
under certain circumstances which the pastors alone 



UNION MISSIONARY WORK. I I I 

could determine, though all such plans are described 
here for the reason that in some cities they have 
proved great successes, and have met with the cordial 
approval of all the pastors. 

Your Own Mission. — Such a plan, for instance, is 
the adoption of a city mission, or the support of a city 
missionary. In some localities this has been the life 
of the city union, and has done wonders for the 
spiritual condition of the churches connected with it. 
Whether this is feasible or not — and it generally is, — 
you may always give great aid to the city mission or 
missions by regular systematic assistance in their 
meetings. On one night, by previous arrangement, 
the Endeavorers of the Walnut Avenue Baptist 
Church will go to the Third Street Rescue Mission. 
The next night the young people of the Sixth Presby- 
terian Church will go there, and so on. These En- 
deavorers will help by singing, by their sympathetic, 
eager listening, by their cordial words to the men, by 
their ready, pointed, brief testimonies when called on, 
and by their faithful prayers. Of course the sights 
they will see and the words they will hear and this 
experience in actual evangelistic work will do far more 
for the Endeavorers than they will do for the mission ; 
but that is all the better. 

Mission Sunday Schools are well within the scope of 
most Christian Endeavor unions. Established by the 
aid of the whole union, each school might be carried 
on by the Endeavorers of a single denomination, all 
the societies of that denomination uniting, so that there 
will be no trouble about the denominational affiliation 
of the church that will surely in time spring from the 



112 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

school. Officers and teachers will be drawn from 
the young people, and the hand-to-hand work with the 
neglected families of . the city that will result from 
contact with their children will prove of inestimable 
value, not only to the city but to the Endeavorers as 
well. 

Union Study Classes for gaining missionary infor- 
mation have been carried on in several large cities. 
The large numbers thus brought together furnish an 
element of enthusiasm wanting in smaller classes, and 
the friction of mind on mind is worth much. Besides, 
banding together in this way, the Endeavorers are 
enabled to obtain the finest of instructors. One union 
that tried this plan added to it a normal class for mis- 
sionary leaders. 

A Circulating Library of missionary books has been 
established by at least one union and found to be a 
success. The union buys the books at a discount. 
They are sent through the mail at a slight cost, and 
thus the reading of the very best missionary books is 
made possible for all the missionary workers of the 
union. 

An Evangelistic Campaign waged by the young peo- 
ple alone has been carried on with much profit in 
some cities. Of course the pastors gave cordial assent 
— that is true of all these accounts. Committees 
were appointed — executive, devotional, evangelistic, 
finance, ushers, music, press, canvassing. The best 
of speakers were obtained, but the young people did 
most of the speaking themselves, after the Christian 
Endeavor fashion. Meetings were held night after 
night in the separate churches, and many were brought 
to Christ. 



UNION MISSIONARY WORK. I I 3 

The Gospel Wagon is a missionary tool that young 
people will find very effective. Indeed, it has already 
been used to the greatest advantage by groups of 
Christian Endeavor societies. The wagon itself, with 
a Bible-rest for the speaker, with a portable organ, 
and with seats for a goodly company of singers, can 
be bought for a sum within the reach of most unions. 
By its aid the distant parts of the city can be reached, 
and the outlying districts. 

Outdoor Evangelistic Services, with or without the 
aid of the gospel wagon, though they fall rather heav- 
ily on a single society, yet when all the societies in the 
union join together, they can be maintained without 
trouble. Most of the Endeavorers will sing, but 
many of them will testify, and their warm words for 
the Master will often produce an impression that the 
most eloquent preacher could hardly make. 

In Factories. — From outdoor work to evangelistic 
work indoors is a short step, and the union will soon 
take it. The Endeavorers, wherever they have tried 
it, have been remarkably successful in reaching with 
the gospel companies of workers in the mills, the fac- 
tories, the great stores, the street-car employees, men 
at the life-saving stations, men on the wharves, men 
in the engine houses, railroad men, the "shut-ins" of 
the asylums, hospitals, almshouses, and prisons. Just 
a simple Christian Endeavor prayer meeting, with 
hearty singing and plain, prompt, glad testimonies, 
such as Endeavorers are perfectly familiar with, has 
proved to be the best possible way into the hearts of 
many of these people whom the church too often neg- 
lects. 



114 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

Bicycle Evangelists. — It has been found possible in 
some localities to gather a strong company of Chris- 
tian Endeavor bicyclists, who — on week-day nights — 
set off on their wheels for the country districts in need 
of gospel work, and hold meetings in school houses 
and in similar places. What kind of " club outing" 
is equal to that ? 

There Are Many Other Plans which the Christian En- 
deavor union might carry out for the benefit of the 
mission cause. It might own and lend a magic lan- 
tern. Flower missions are carried on by many city 
unions, in conjunction with country unions. Fresh-air 
work and country week ; street-car rides for the chil- 
dren of the poor ; boat excursions, also, for them; 
carriage rides for their sick ; regular meetings in coun- 
try school houses — these are only a few of the diver- 
sified missionary undertakings that our active unions 
have proved possible for young people. 

The State Unions have, as yet, developed few plans 
for advance missionary work, though some of the 
State unions have their missionary superintendents. 
Of course one of their first duties is to urge in all socie- 
ties the appointment of missionary committees and the 
holding of regular missionary meetings, the circulation 
of missionary literature, and the formation of mission- 
ary study classes. Care for the missionary features 
of the annual Christian Endeavor convention also 
comes within the province of the missionary superin- 
tendent. 

The First Work of a county missionary superinten- 
dent, or a State superintendent, or the chairman of a 
union missionary committee, is to ascertain, if it is 



UNION MISSIONARY WORK. I I 5 

not known already, just what the societies are already- 
doing for missions. Knowing this, he can go on to 
make definite recommendations. A circular of in- 
quiry, with blanks to be filled out, must be his first 
official document. It must ask what is the annual 
gift of the society to missions ; how often they hold 
missionary meetings ; what missionary themes are 
taken up ; what interest they have in special fields, if 
any ; whether a missionary committee is in existence; 
if so, the name of the chairman, and at what time the 
new officers are chosen ; the name of the pastor, the 
president, the corresponding secretary. Most of this 
knowledge is necessary, and all of it is useful, before 
wise work can be done in a union by those that would 
stir up missionary zeal among its members. 

State Missionary Campaigns, and even campaigns 
that have extended through several States, have been 
carried on with much enthusiasm and lasting gain by 
the Endeavorers. The State officers manage the 
work. They correspond with the societies, and, mak- 
ing the condition that the pastors shall first approve 
everything, they arrange for such mass meetings as 
are described in the chapter on that subject. The 
local union agrees to pay its share of the speakers' ex- 
penses. An average of five dollars a union has been 
found to be sufficient, as the speakers give their time 
and only travelling expenses are to be provided for. 
The best missionary orators in the country can be ob- 
tained for these campaigns, because the audiences of- 
fered are so large and so numerous. Night after 
night for several weeks at a time, the speakers move 
from town to town, finding everywhere that the En- 



Il6 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

deavorers have thoroughly advertised their meetings, 
and that a great throng of interested auditors awaits 
them. 

Summer Schools of missions have been established 
for some time in at least one State, — California, — 
and they have done much good. The best of instruc- 
tors are obtained, and the pleasures of a delightful 
vacation resort are combined with the greater joys of 
missionary study classes and lectures. As all States 
now have Student Volunteers, this plan, on a small 
and modified scale possibly, is one that may be trans- 
planted from California. 



MISSIONARY MASS MEETINGS. I 1 7 



CHAPTER XVI. 

MISSIONARY MASS MEETINGS. 

The Value of Numbers. — The phrase, " poorly at- 
tended," has come almost to belong to the words, 
"missionary meeting." I am thankful to say that in 
our Christian Endeavor societies the missionary meet- 
ing is usually the most popular of all the meetings. 
This will be true everywhere throughout the church if 
popular methods are used. It is only necessary to 
put together half a dozen "poorly attended" mission- 
ary meetings, and you have a crowded mass meeting 
that will excite the curiosity of the most listless and 
persuade the most indifferent that there must be some- 
thing in missions worth his attention. Our churches 
have made the mistake of holding missionary meetings 
that treat only denominational topics, thus losing the 
impetus that should come with a great, world-wide 
movement like missions. In no town where it has 
been tried will there ever afterward be a doubt as to 
the value of the interdenominational missionary mass 
meeting. 

The Speaker may be a returned missionary. If he 
is a good talker, of course he is the very best man for 
your purpose. He will welcome the opportunity of 
addressing a large audience, and will have much to 
say that is just as helpful to other denominations as to 
his own. Of course no collection will be taken, but 



I I 8 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

the meeting will have its effect on all subsequent mis- 
sionary collections. If no returned missionary is 
available, nevertheless you may have a missionary 
mass meeting, using some eloquent pastor or layman ; 
or, perhaps better, use some of the following plans 
which call for many speakers. 

A Pastors 7 Meeting. — In this meeting every pastor 
in town is to have a part. Get a bright presiding offi- 
cer who knows how to keep the speakers strictly on 
time, while keeping them and every one else in a good 
humor. Divide the time evenly among the speakers. 
Get each man to choose some aspect of missions on 
which he would like to speak. See that the titles are 
taking ones, and advertise them all. Never mind if 
two do choose the same theme. Each will have so 
short a time that they will not be likely to overlap. 
And with such a galaxy of able speakers, you will 
surely have a crowded audience and a fine meeting. 

A Testimony Meeting. — "Why I believe in mis- 
sions " is the theme. Choose for the speakers some 
bright business men, a few attractive women speakers, 
a teacher, a lawyer, a physician, and the like, covering 
as wide a circle of occupations as you can. Get the 
best speaker in the community to sum up the argu- 
ment in a few pointed sentences at the close. 

A Bird's-Eye View Meeting. — Obtain for this meet- 
ing as many representatives of different denominations 
as you can, and let each come prepared to speak on 
the most important features of the missionary enter- 
prises of his church. Urge every speaker to stick 
strictly to his text — not to make a plea for missions 
in general, but to confine himself to telling in what 



MISSIONARY MASS MEETINGS. II9 

points his denominational missions are unique, and 
what conspicuous triumphs they have won or are win- 
ning. A large map would be of much service in this 
meeting. 

A Generosity Meeting. — A number of speakers will 
make a plea from different standpoints for more gen- 
erous missionary giving. One will make the argument 
from the Bible, one from the needs of the heathen, one 
from the commercial advantages that spring from mis- 
sions, one from the heroic lives of missionaries, one 
from the spiritual results among the heathen, and so 
on. Be definite. Push tithe-giving. Let the system be 
strenuously presented by some strong advocate who 
will invite questions about it from any one in the room. 

A'Missionary Jubilee. — This meeting might be held 
at the end of the year. Representatives of the differ- 
ent denominations would speak, each telling of the 
missionary victories during the year on the mission 
fields of his own denomination. The meeting would 
send every one home tingling with fresh zeal and new 
courage. 

A City-Missions Meeting. — If your union is in a 
large city, you can easily obtain addresses of thrilling 
interest from representatives of the various city mis- 
sions — the rescue missions that work among men and 
those that deal with the women, the missions to the 
sailors, the all-night mission work, the industrial 
homes, the children's missions, the missions to the 
Chinese, Italians, Jews, and other nationalities. The 
meeting will arouse the Christians to labor for their 
own city as no recital from a single missionary, repre- 
senting a single institution, could. 



I20 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

" For Our Country." — A home-mission meeting is 
especially suitable for a patriotic anniversary, such as 
the Fourth of July and Memorial Day. If you cannot 
obtain a genuine home missionary, get a number of 
speakers to make short speeches filled with anec- 
dotes, each of them taking up one phase of home- 
mission work, such as work among the negroes of the 
South, among the mountain whites, among the 
Indians, Chinese, Mormons. 

A Missionary-Committee Meeting. — This is to be 
an evening for the^Christian Endeavor workers espec- 
ially. The members of the missionary committees of 
the union will themselves fill up the programme with 
brief, telling speeches, a sort of sharp-shooting, Chris- 
tion Endeavor fashion. A good subject for the even- 
ing might be, " Missions and the Young," with such 
subdivisions as these : " What Christian Endeavor is 
doing^for missions." " Christian Endeavor in mis- 
sionary lands." " The condition of children under 
heathen rule." "Young men who have made great 
missionaries." " Young women who have made 
great missionaries." " The young people in the native 
missionary schools." 

A Question-Box Meeting would be as successful in a 
mass meeting as it is in the individual society, only, if 
you try it for a mass meeting, you must be certain to 
provide a sufficient supply of questions against the 
possibility that the audience may not choose to ask 
questions themselves. Get at least three well informed 
persons, who are good speakers and missionary enthu- 
siasts, to answer the questions. Let one take one- 
third, and answer them. Then have music, and pass 



MISSIONARY MASS MEETINGS. 121 

on to the next third. Then have a series of sentence 
prayers by the Endeavorers, another song, and the 
third set of queries. 

An Education Meeting. — This meeting will deal with 
the importance of missionary information, and the 
delights of missionary reading. It will present some 
of the most fascinating missionary books, and will 
seek to start in many different centres some systematic 
plan of missionary study. Here is a possible pro- 
gramme: " Outline of a simple missionary biography. ,, 
"Some fascinating bits from missionary lives." 
" Why read missionary periodicals?" "A broadside 
of specimen missionary facts." This broadside is a 
collection of the most interesting of missionary facts 
and anecdotes, given in swift succession by a dozen 
young people. " A plan for missionary study applica- 
ble to any church or society." 

The Stereopticon is always a good medium for mis- 
sionary information. Missionaries on furlough are 
coming more and more to use it in their addresses. 
If a union cannot find a missionary so provided, it 
may purchase or make a set of slides, and get a mis- 
sionary to base upon them a delightful talk. 

A Day's Programme. — Several marvellous cam- 
paigns for the arousing of missionary enthusiasm have 
been conducted by the Christian Endeavorers of a 
number of States, and the plan that works best is in 
its essentials this : The pastors all preach missionary 
sermons in the morning, referring to the coming meet- 
ing. In the afternoon there is held in a central place 
a conference of all the missionary workers in town, 
young and old. The various plans proposed in the 



122 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

chapter on missionary conferences may here be used. 
In the evening comes the mass meeting, in which all 
the churches unite. 



MISSIONARY CONFERENCES. I 23 



CHAPTER XVII. 

MISSIONARY CONFERENCES. 

A Most Useful Method. — The missionary confer- 
ence, though a local union method of work, is of such 
importance as to warrant a chapter by itself. These 
committee conferences illustrate one of the chief ad- 
vantages of our interdenominational system. They 
focus upon each society the enthusiasm and practical 
discoveries of all societies in the city or town. The 
missionary conference is made up of all the mission- 
ary societies in the union, or, if the union is too large 
for that, then of all societies in a certain district of 
the city. In order to give the zest of difficulty, ad- 
mission to the conference should be by ticket only, 
and each committeeman should be given a few 
tickets to hand to his friends who might like to be 
present. We must be training material for the mis- 
sionary committees in the future. 

The Best Time for the conference is in the fall, at 
the opening of a new season of work. If a second 
conference is held during the year, let it be in the 
spring, to gather up the methods that have proved 
most useful. 

A Roll-Call of the societies may well stand at the 
opening of the conference. This will stimulate attend- 
ance, especially if the result is reported at the next 
union meeting. Do not have it a mere formal roll- 
call, but after the chairman of each committee has 



124 ™ E MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

told how many members of his committee are present, 
have him give one plan for a missionary meeting on 
China, for instance, varying the subject of this sym- 
posium with each meeting. 

The Programme of the conference is prepared by 
the union missionary committee, or, if you have no 
such committee, then by the union committee that 
has charge of the conferences in general. It should 
always contain two factors : papers or addresses care- 
fully thought out beforehand, and informal discussions 
and conversations. 

The Topics to be Treated are at least as numerous 
as the paragraphs of this book. Here are only a few 
of the most important themes which may be dis- 
cussed, first in formal essays and then in brisk 
question and answer: "How to present missionary 
statistics in the most attractive way." " How to get 
the Endeavorers to read missionary books." " How 
to increase the circulation of missionary periodicals." 
" The best way of presenting missionary biographies in 
our meetings." " Utilizing letters from missionaries." 
" Do we give liberally enough ? How can we increase 
the per cent of our giving ? " " What is the best mis- 
sionary meeting you have held in your society? " Let 
it be understood that every member of the conference 
is expected to come with something to say on every 
topic. Announce the subjects in the invitations to 
the conference. In appointing the speakers that are 
to lead off in the discussion, subdivide the topics as 
much as possible, so as to give as many as you can 
some definite work to do, and thus make sure of their 
attendance. 



MISSIONARY CONFERENCES. 1 25 

An Exhibit should be made at the missionary con- 
ference of all new matter for illustrating missionary 
meetings that may have been added to the missionary 
museum of the union, or, if you have no such institu- 
tion, let each society bring whatever objects have 
contributed to the interest of its recent missionary 
meetings — any bright diagram or chart, or object 
from a missionary land. It would be a good plan to 
have read before the conference the best short paper 
presented anywhere at a recent missionary meeting, 
if you can get hold of it. 

The Conversational Spirit must be gained for the 
conference, if you want it to be successful. Let the 
leader set the example by boldly interrupting any 
speaker or essayist with questions as they occur to 
him. A missionary question-box or answer-box will 
add to this feeling of informality. Make the mission- 
ary conference in reality what it is in theory, an earnest, 
friendly talk among the faithful servants of the King 
on the absorbing question of how they can best ad- 
vance the King's business. 



126 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
MISSIONS IN CONVENTIONS. 

A Missionary Address of some kind should be part 
of practically every religious gathering of Christian 
Endeavorers. This is our one great theme, as it is the 
one great theme of the church of which the society is 
a constituent part. Assign the best speakers to this 
topic. Give them the best place on the programme. 
See that the wording of their subjects is bright and 
"fetching." 

The Missionaries Themselves should be heard from, 
if any are present. Conventions that are favored 
with the attendance of many of these Christian heroes 
should set apart a special time for introducing them 
to the audience. Each will be received with rising 
and a salute, and then, if there is time, will speak 
briefly. " Why I became a missionary," would be an 
inspiring symposium in which not only the mission- 
aries might take part but also whatever Student Vol- 
unteers are present. 

A Model Missionary Meeting would form an attrac- 
tive portion of the programme. Let it be given by 
the society in the convention's constituency that gets 
up the most wide-awake missionary meetings. A 
stereopticon lecture on missions, and a missionary ex- 
ercise by the Juniors, may be obtained. An hour 
may be given up to a memorial meeting for the great 



MISSIONS IN CONVENTIONS. \2J 

missionaries of all denominations that have died dur- 
ing the year, the work of each to be reviewed by- 
some one in especial sympathy with it. Many ideas 
described in the chapters on missionary meetings, 
mass meetings, and union missionary work, may be 
applied also to State conventions. 

Open Parliaments on missions will arouse mission- 
ary zeal as few other exercises, if they are led with 
force and discretion. The speaker should devote 
himself not to showing off, but to drawing out. He 
should propound question after question, such as: 
" What was your best missionary meeting? " " How 
do you increase the gifts of your members ? " " Why 
do you believe in missions?" "What systematic 
studying for missions does your society do ? " " How 
do you keep before the society the work of the 
boards?" He will call for votes: "How many of 
you belong to societies that have missionary commit- 
tees? that have regular missionary meetings? four 
times a year? six times ? eight times ? How many of 
you have read ten missionary books? How many 
subscribe to a missionary magazine? How many of 
you believe in paying to the Lord's work at least a 
tenth of your income? How many of you belong to 
societies that contribute enough to their denomina- 
tional boards for the support of a single missionary?" 
A special conference of missionary committees held 
later in the convention will carry on with greater ful- 
ness the discussions suggested by this open par- 
liament. 

Objections to Missions may be presented concisely 
by one speaker (who will be, of course, a strong 



128 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

friend of missions) and then answered by another 
speaker. The most effective way of giving this is 
in a dialogue, the first speaker bringing forward an 
objection which is immediately answered by the 
second. 

A Missionary Table should be a feature of every 
convention, and if the convention is large, it may be- 
come a missionary room, where may be displayed a 
sample missionary museum, together with specimen 
numbers of all the denominational and general mis- 
sionary papers and magazines. Subscriptions should 
be received for them. All kinds of devices for add- 
ing to the interest of missionary meetings should be 
shown. 

Blanks May Be Circulated for the signature of the 
Endeavorers, that the advice of the speakers may be- 
come fixed in their purposes. One of these blanks 
should be an application for membership in the Tenth 
Legion. These blanks are to be obtained, free, from 
Secretary John Willis Baer, Tremont Temple, Bos- 
ton. The other blank should be what has come to be 
known as a "policy blank." It is a printed form, 
varying according to the local needs, and is an agree- 
ment on the part of the Endeavorers to hold their so- 
cieties as far as possible to a certain high standard of 
missionary work, such as six missionary meetings a 
year, a certain per cent of missionary giving, mission- 
ary study classes, missionary libraries, and the like. 

A Roll of Honor is a useful method of exciting in- 
terest in missions. Upon it are placed the names of 
all societies that have given during the year at least 
ten dollars to their denominational missionary work. 



MISSIONS IN CONVENTIONS. I2Q 

There will be many feet of this missionary roll, and 
^s it is unrolled by an ardent speaker and draped 
around the room, a scene of enthusiasm is sure to 
follow. 



I SO THE MISSIONARY MANUAL, 



CHAPTER XIX. 

MISSIONARY SPURS. 

This chapter is intended to contain a number of 
missionary methods, well worth describing, that seem 
to have no suitable place in any preceding chapter. 

The Missionary Information Committee, like the ordi- 
nary "information committee ? ' of any Christian En- 
deavor society, will report at the opening of every 
meeting. Its report will consist of brief, " catchy " 
items of recent missionary news. The report may be 
given by a single member of the committee, or by all 
the members, each of them contributing an item in 
swift succession. 

The Use of Tracts is commended to our societies as 
a sure method of reaching many souls. Of course the 
tracts should be wisely chosen, should be absolutely 
free from cant, manly and sincere in their tone. 
Some Endeavorers put them to double use by print- 
ing the church notices on the back, then distributing 
them as invitations from house to house. 

A Society Bookcase for holding the missionary li- 
brary may be made to do double duty. It can be 
arranged with a desk on which the society secretary 
may write, and with compartments in which may be 
kept pledge cards, topic cards, and the records. 

The Christian Endeavor Day Offerings should always 
be for the cause of denominational missions, No 



MISSIONARY SPURS. L 3 I 

other cause is so appropriate to the day. Advertise 
the matter well beforehand. Urge the gift as a thank 
offering for the blessings of Christian Endeavor. Set 
apart the week before Christian Endeavor Day as a 
special week of self-denial, in order that the gifts may 
be worthy of the society and of the cause. Divide 
the sum received equally between your home and 
foreign missionary boards, and when the money is 
sent in say that it is the Christian Endeavor Day 
offering of your society. 

Essays on Missionary Subjects may be called for at 
the beginning of the year, the subjects to require some 
considerable study and the papers to be of some length 
and importance.. Get the pastor or some prominent 
member of the church to offer a prize for the best 
essay, choose a representative committee to act as 
judges, and appoint an evening when all the essays 
may be read and a decision rendered. 

Visits to City Missions may be made regularly by 
members of the society who will be sent out two by 
two for this purpose. Such visits, of course, will not 
take the place of visits by the society in a body, but 
will be more frequent. At the next meeting each pair 
of delegates will report what they have seen and 
heard. As all missions will be visited in turn, this 
will be quite an education in mission work, both for 
those that go and for those that stay. 

A Missionary Week. — This will not be impossible 
if you have worked up well the missionary zeal of the 
young people. Gain the co-operation of all other 
missionary organizations in the church.. Arrange for 
an exhibition of whatever missionary material you 



152 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

may have— -curios, diagrams, and the like. In the 
evenings hold meetings, considering each evening 
some one phase of the multiform subject. 

A Hectograph, will be the missionary committee's 
right hand man. Home-made hectographs do good 
work, or, you can buy one at slight cost. The hecto- 
graph can be used for copying programmes,, for ad- 
vertising purposes, for making duplicate maps, charts, 
copies of missionary exercises, and for divers other 
purposes. 

Missionary Note-Books may be bought and given to 
every End eavorer with the request that they be car- 
ried in the pocket, and that a watch be kept for what- 
ever facts and interesting anecdotes may be found 
relating to missions. They may also be used to record 
thoughts on missionary topics, Bible verses relating to 
missions, and many other matters useful in missionary 
meetings. They may serve also as account books for 
missionary gifts. 

Missionary Circles.— This is an easy and effective 
mode of keeping up the interest in missions. Divide 
the society into groups, each with a chairman, and as- 
sign each group to some country. Expect a report 
from each group once every three weeks. These 
reports will contain only two or three brief 
items, so that several reports can be read in five 
minutes. 

Papers for Missionaries. — -In their isolated posts the 
missionaries find the weekly visits of a religious paper 
a comfort and assistance such as we can hardly 
imagine. No gift of the same cost is equal in real 
value for the missionary to the gift of a religious 



MISSIONARY SPURS. 133 

journal. All papers make special reductions in price 
when the subscription is for this purpose. 

Gift Boxes. — Of course our societies know about 
missionary ""barrels,' 7 and have packed, or helped to 
pack, many of them. Without this practical aid the 
missionary cause would now be far less advanced than 
it is. But how many have sent out missionary gift 
boxes? These are to contain not so much what is 
needed as what will be enjoyed — little articles of 
luxury such as a missionary cannot afford . Toys for 
: the children will go into these boxes, • • patterns " of 
pretty dresses, books of poems and stories, and — to 
express the idea in a single word — candy ! 

The Missionary Bible. — The missionary committee 
will do much toward training the society in the mis- 
sionary spirit if they can persuade the members to 
commit to memory Bible verses bearing on missions. 
Select a number — -say twelve — -and give the list to 
all the members, with the request that the verses be 
committed to memory before the next missionary 
meeting. At that meeting ask all to rise that can 
recite them, and then choose some one to prove it ! 

Ask the Missionary Boards what work they have for 
you to do. Most missionary boards now recognize 
the young people's societies as valuable aids. Some 
have special secretaries for young people's work. 
Almost all of them get out leaflets of information 
intended for young people. If you write directly to 
headquarters, you will cheer them there and you will 
get the best of guidance. 

The Week of Prayer was originally established as a 
world-wide concert of prayer for missions. It has not 



134 THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 

departed so far from its first purpose that it will not 
be appropriate for our missionary committees to make 
special effort to win the young people's interest in it. 
Get *them to attend in a body and to add to the meet- 
ing the enthusiasm of a Christian Endeavor gathering, 
speaking promptly when opportunity is given for tes- 
timony or prayer. 

A Win-One Band is a simple " wheel within a wheel," 
and the possibilities for good are so great that all mis- 
sionary committees would do well to consider establish- 
ing one in their society. The band consists of those 
that agree, God helping them, to win one soul to 
Christ during the year. 



THE CONQUEST MISSIONARY LIBRARY. 

TEN VOLUMES FOR $5.00. 

This library contains ten of the latest and best missionary books that 
are published. The books are exceptionally well illustrated, there being 
about ioo full-page illustrations, besides numerous smaller ones. r \ he 
books are uniform in size and binding. The library may be secured 
from either our Boston or Chicago office. The price is only S5.00. It 
is by far the best library for the price that has ever been published. 
The ten books in the library are as follows : — 

Chinese Characteristics. With 16 full-page illustrations and index. 
By Rev. A. H. Smith, D.D., for 22 years a missionary in China. 6th 
thousand. Price, 51.25. 

"The best book on the Chinese people." — The Examiner. 

" A completely trustworthy study." — The Adva?ice. 

The Gist of Japan. The Islands, their People and Missions. By 
Rev. R. B. Peery, A.M., Ph.D., of the Lutheran Mission, Saga. 
Illustrated. Price, $1.25. 

Interesting, reliable, and instructive. 

From Far Formosa. The Island, its People and Missions. By 
Rev. C. L. MacKay, D.D., for 23 years a Missionary on the island. 
Edited by Rev. J. A. MacDonald. With 4 Maps, 16 Illustrations, and 
an Index. 5th thousand. Price, Si. 25, 

" Undoubtedly the man who knows most about Formosa."' — The 

Review of Reviews. 

Our Sisters in India. By Rev. E. Storrow. Illustrated. 121110, 
cloth, Si. 25. 

Mr. Storrow, the veteran Indian missionary, brings together in this 
volume a great mass of information about the degradation and 
the sufferings of Indian women. 

In Afric'S Forest and Jungle. By Rev. R. H. Stone. Illustrated. 
i2mo, cloth, $1.00. 

It is an unusually bright series of sketches by a missionary who 
resided for several years in a large native village in West Africa. 



THE CONQUEST rUSSIONARY LIBRARY. 

(Continued.) 

The Transformation of Hawaii: How American Missionaries gave 
a Christian Nation to the World. Told for Young People by Belle M 
Brain , author of " Fuel for Missionary Fires," i2ino, cloth, illustrated, 
|i.oo. 

Fellow Travelers. Impressions of Men, Things, and Events, 
By Rev. Francis E. Clark. Illustrated from photographs. Price, $1:25, 
" This fascinating record of his toils and observations in Europe, 
India, and Africa is a real contribution to an appreciative knowl- 
edge of peoples, and hence is a powerful preacher of peace and 
good will among men. "—John Henry Barrows. 

Nineteen Centuries of Missions. By Mrs. Wm, W. Scudder. 
This is a complete text book and history of missions from the time 
of the Apostolic Church to the present day. It is just what young 
people interested in missions have long been looking for. 

On the Indian Trail, and Other Stories of Missionary Work among 
the Cree and Saulteaux Indians. By Egerton R. Young. Illustrated 
by J. E. Laughlin. i2ino, cloth, $1,0:. 

Mr. Young is well-known to readers of all ages as the author of 
" By Canoe and Dog Train," '' Three. Boys in the Wild North 
Land," and other very popular books describing life and adventure 
in the great Northwest. The stories in this new book tell of some 
very exciting incidents in his career, and describe phases of life 
among the American Indians which are fast becoming things of the 
past. 

Korean Sketches. By Rev. James S. Gale. A Missionary's Ob> 
servations in the Hermit Nation. Fully illustrated. 12'mo, cloth, $1. 00. 
" He writes easily and picturesquely of the peoples and their cus- 
toms ; of exciting and amusing travel adventures ; and of the possi- 
bilities of manufactures,- commerce, agriculture, education, and 
religion in Korea. His book is thoroughly readable. As a clear 
presentation of native life it is the best extant book on Korea." 
— Outlook. 



Remember, Ten Volumes for $5.00. 



UNITED SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR, 
Tremont Temple, Boston, 155 T.a Sai.t.f. St., Chicago 



JUL 6 1899 



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